NASA released fresh images on Wednesday of the interstellar object called 3I/ATLAS that astronomers have determined is a comet probably even older than our solar system, as U.S. space agency officials dismissed speculation that it is actually an alien spacecraft.
3I/ATLAS was first spotted in July by an Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, or ATLAS, telescope located in Rio Hurtado, Chile, and has been tracked by astronomers since then. Its unusual trajectory indicated that it was passing through our solar system from parts unknown.
"It's natural to wonder what it is. We love that the world wondered along with us," Nicola Fox, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, told a news briefing in Greenbelt, Maryland, referring to the comet as "our friendly solar system visitor."
"We were quick to be able to say, 'Yup, it definitely behaves like a comet. We certainly haven't seen any technosignatures or anything from it that would lead us to believe it was anything other than a comet."
3I/ATLAS is only the third interstellar object ever observed by astronomers traveling through the solar system. The others were comets called 1I/'Oumuamua (pronounced oh-MOO-uh-MOO-uh), detected in 2017, and 2I/Borisov, discovered in 2019.
Comets are small solid celestial bodies that are a combination of rocky and icy material that evaporates as they warm when getting close to a star like our sun.
3I/ATLAS has attracted particular attention because of one scientist's suggestion that it is not a comet but rather alien technology due to its trajectory, composition and other factors.
At the outset of Wednesday's briefing, NASA Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya said, "To start with, I'd like to address the rumors" about the nature of 3I/ATLAS.
"I think it's important that we talk about that. This object is a comet," Kshatriya said. "It looks and behaves like a comet. And all evidence points to it being a comet."
Kshatriya noted that NASA missions are actively searching for signs of possible life beyond Earth, pointing to research published in September showing that a sample obtained by NASA's Perseverance rover of rock formed billions of years ago from sediment on the bottom of a lake contains potential signs of ancient microbial life on Mars.
"We want very much to find signs of life in the universe," Kshatriya said.
NASA said 3I/ATLAS poses no threat to Earth and will get no closer than about 170 million miles (275 million km) to our planet.
NEW IMAGES
Fox said NASA has studied 3I/ATLAS with more than a dozen scientific platforms including the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes and satellites orbiting Mars.
The new NASA images, all taken from afar, showed it with a blurry appearance but with the clear presence of a telltale coma - the hazy cloud of gas and dust around its nucleus - and the tail of dust following its orbit. The release of the images had been delayed by the U.S. government shutdown.
Tom Statler, lead NASA scientist for solar system small bodies, said the size of the comet's nucleus is hard to pin down, but estimated it based on Hubble observations to be in the range of "a couple of thousand feet to a couple of miles" in diameter. Statler said the nucleus seems to be "not very far from being round."
Source: Reuters
Bd-pratidin English/ ANI
