A recently discovered comet twice the size of the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs has unusual characteristics and a 40% chance of following a deliberately designed trajectory, Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb told Newsmax on Tuesday.
Loeb told "Finnerty" that the comet known as 3I/ATLAS, now passing through our solar system, shows several anomalies that make it unlikely to be an ordinary space rock.
"Well, if it's a rock, it's too big to be delivered to our neighborhood once per decade," Loeb said. "A rock of 20 kilometers [over 12 miles] in diameter should arrive once per 10,000 years or so. And moreover, there is no cometary tail behind it. There is a little bit of fuzz ahead of it, some glow that could be just dirt on its surface that was evaporated by the sunlight."
Loeb also noted its "very fine-tuned trajectory" within the plane of the planets around the sun, estimating the chance of such an orbit occurring naturally at 1 in 500. He added that the likelihood of it passing so close to Mars, Venus, and Jupiter is "extremely small, 1 in 20,000." Compounding the mystery, he said, is the fact that when the object comes closest to the sun, Earth will be on the opposite side and unable to observe it directly.
"I give it a 40% chance of having a designed trajectory, something that was planned by some intelligence out there," Loeb said, adding that more interstellar objects are likely to be found in the coming decade and should be monitored for potential threats.
To investigate further, Loeb has proposed using NASA's Juno spacecraft, now orbiting Jupiter, to study the object when it approaches the planet in March 2026.
"Instead of getting rid of Juno, the plan was to put it into Jupiter in September this year. Instead of that, I suggest extending the mission by another six months and bringing it close to the path of 3I/ATLAS," he said. He added that Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., recently sent a letter to NASA encouraging such a mission extension.
Loeb said that there is not yet enough data to determine whether the comet is a natural or technological object, but that more information should be available within a month or two. His rating system is "zero" for a purely natural object and "10: for a technological one, with the current assessment unknown.
"At the moment, we just don't have enough data to decide," he said.
Asked if the object could be hostile, Loeb replied that no evidence exists one way or the other.
"I suggested beaming a friendly message to it and saying, 'Hello; welcome to our cosmic neighborhood,' and, 'We seek peace.' That would be my message."
He also rejected the idea that humanity is unique in the universe.
"Imagining that we are the only ones is just unreasonable," he said.
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Jim Thomas ✉
Jim Thomas is a writer based in Indiana. He holds a bachelor's degree in Political Science, a law degree from U.I.C. Law School, and has practiced law for more than 20 years.
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