‘Spaceship’ 3I/ATLAS now has ‘wobbly’ double-jet construction as alien concept strengthens
The Manhattan-sized interstellar visitor hurtling through space has captured the imaginations of UFO watchers for months and still sparks debate as it heads out of our solar system
Theories that a mystery space object could be a hostile alien spaceship have been revived after new photos showed it appearing to display a rotating double jet structure. Most boffins believe Manhattan-sized 3I/Atlas is a comet and comes from another star system.
But Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb argued it could be an artificial alien probe on a reconnaissance mission due to its unusual glow and non-natural path.
And despite it passing Earth earlier this month without making contact with us, the space scientist believes it could still be a craft controlled by alien technology.
He said in a recent blog post that new images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope reveal a double jet structure, with the more prominent one being an anti-tail directed towards the Sun.
A sunward jet, 10 times longer than it is wide, was previously captured on July 21. Loeb said its 7-degree wobble around the rotation axis of 3I/Atlas implied that it “originated near the Sun-facing pole long before” it approached the Sun.
And he said it now points in the same direction as the weaker jet in the new Hubble images, taken on December 12 and 27, and “accompanied by a stronger sunward jet from the opposite side” as it makes its way out of the solar system.
He wrote: “One possibility is that the two jets are launched from opposite sides of the nucleus. This would make the post-perihelion activity of 3I/ATLAS different than it was before perihelion.
“For a natural comet, heat conduction could transport the excess solar energy near perihelion from the dayside to the nightside and activate a weak jet on the nightside in addition to a stronger jet on the dayside.
“For a technological object, the sunward jet might be utilized for protection against the solar wind, coronal mass ejections or sunlight — given that the anti-tail is marginally opaque.
“In addition, the secondary jet could mitigate risk from obstacles lying ahead along its path. The second interpretation is that both jets originate from the Sun-facing side but they have a different composition.”
He went on: “The true origin of the jets can be inferred from measurements of the velocity profile of the two jets, based on future spectroscopic data from large telescopes like the Keck Observatory in Hawaii or the Very Large Telescope in Chile.
“In the second interpretation, the weaker jet would also show a launch base on the sun-facing side of the nucleus and accelerate to an increasing recession speed with distance in the direction away from the Sun.
“In a technological context, both jets are expected to show a high-speed exceeding 1 kilometer per second at their launch points near the nucleus.”
Named after the ATLAS survey in Hawaii which spotted it, the space has ignited controversial theories and captured the imaginations of UFO watchers for months.
A scientific paper Loeb co-authored warned the object could be a hostile spacecraft and warned that world leaders should prepare for all eventualities, from a life-changing alien close encounter to a hostile threat.
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