Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb said interstellar object 3I/ATLAS has entered the ideal zone to perform gravitational manipulation. This is what he is talking about wrote on the Medium platform.
The object, discovered on July 1 using NASA's network of telescopes, entered the solar system several months ago and reached its closest point to the Sun on October 29. Most experts consider 3I/ATLAS to be an interstellar comet, however, according to Avi Loeb, it cannot be ruled out that it is of artificial origin.
According to Loeb, if his suspicions are correct and the object is indeed an alien ship, it could use the sun's gravity to slow down before approaching Earth. Additionally, he believes that, hidden behind the Sun, 3I/ATLAS could launch miniature reconnaissance probes.
Perihelion represents an important test for 3I/ATLAS. If it were a naturally occurring comet, the heat of 770 watts per square meter could destroy it. However, if 3I/ATLAS is manufactured according to the technology – indicated by its high nickel content relative to its iron content – it could begin to control or launch mini probes. Other signs of artificial origin could be artificial lighting or excessive heat from its engine. Astrophysicist Avi Loeb
Loeb argues that the object exhibits many surprising characteristics that are inconsistent with typical comet behavior. So 3I/ATLAS has an antitail – a stream of particles pointing toward the Sun, not away from it. A nickel plume is also released at a rate of 4 grams per second.
The astrophysicist noted both the object's antigravity acceleration and its anomalous orbit, which resulted in a suspicious approach to Jupiter, Venus, and Mars. According to him, all these factors allow us to assume that 3I/ATLAS is actually an alien probe heading towards Earth.
Avi Loeb is director of the Galileo Project, founding director of the Black Hole Initiative at Harvard University, and director of the Institute for Theory and Computation at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. He is the former chairman of the Department of Astronomy at Harvard University.
In August, senior researcher at the Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics SB RAS, professor at Irkutsk State University Sergei Yazev said that the recently discovered object with comet 3I/ATLAS characteristics is not an alien spacecraft.
