Scientist claims there are a ‘trillion’ different mysterious objects like 3I/ATLAS in area
31/ATLAS, the interstellar anomaly that has rivetted scientists as it hurtles through our solar system, might not be as special as we thought, says a space expert
3I/ATLAS has fascinated and alarmed stargazers for weeks with its strange trajectory and weird anti-tail, convincing many that the Manhattan-sized interstellar visitor is a spaceship sent to probe mankind or even make contact with us.
But Avi Loeb, a scientist who has launched several theories about its mysterious origins, now points out that a trillion similar objects could be in our solar system right now – and over a billion may have have already visited Earth.
While 3I/ATLAS is special as possibly only the third interstellar object seen in our solar system, he reckons the Milky Way holds an utterly immense number of such objects (10^{23}, or one hundred sextillion).
31/ATLAS has been classified as a comet, rather than a spaceship, by scientists at NASA, ESA and other space agencies. It was first spotted on July 1 by the ATLAS observatory in Chile.
The object’s trajectory immediately revealed its origins in deep space, with a hyperbolic path not attached to the sun’s gravity. This route meant that it must come from somewhere in the Milky Way, although scientists aren’t quite sure exactly where.
But 3I/ATLAS isn’t unique, says Avi Loeb, who reckons there are billions and trillions of such objects traversing through our galaxy.
He also believes that 3I/ATLAS has been hurtling for 8,000 years through “the region containing objects that are gravitationally bound to the Sun, the so-called solar system”, according to WION News.
As the comet is a natural object, it can also be used to deduce the number of such objects moving “through the solar system out to the edge of the Oort Cloud at a distance of 100,000 AU [Astronomical Unit, a unit of length equal to the average Earth-Sun distance (about 150 million km or 93 million miles)]”
“Given that 3I/ATLAS was discovered at a distance of ~5 AU in a survey that lasted 5 years, I calculate that there should be a trillion objects like 3I/ATLAS in the solar system right now!” Loeb wrote in his blog.
As the edge of the Oort cloud is about halfway to the nearest star system, Alpha Centauri, he calculates that a trillion objects like 3I/ATLAS are being produced per star in the Milky Way.
The Milky Way is believed to contain 100 billion stars, which likely “process 3 million solar masses to make a population of interstellar comets like 3I/ATLAS over the past 10 billion years.” Loeb says that this means that there are “10^{23} similar objects in the Milky Way galaxy alone and 10^{34} of them in the observable volume of the Universe.”
The Harvard scientist says this means that 3I/ATLAS isn’t really special, and Earth has been visited by a billion similar interstellar objects over its lifetime.
For the latest breaking news and stories from across the globe from the Daily Star, sign up for our newsletters.
