A Sense of Doubt blog post #3836 - Interstellar Object Emitting Its Own Light
Wouldn't it be cool if this was an alien craft?
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https://futurism.com/interstellar-object-light
Mysterious Object Hurtling Toward Us From Beyond Solar System Appears to Be Emitting Its Own Light, Scientists Find
One possibility, he suggests: it's a "spacecraft powered by nuclear energy."
Last month, astronomers made an exciting discovery, observing an interstellar object — only the third ever observed — hurtling toward the center of the solar system.
The object, dubbed 3I/ATLAS, has caught the attention of Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb, who has a long track record of making controversial predictions about previous interstellar objects being relics from an extraterrestrial civilization.
While there's been a growing consensus among astronomers that the latest object is a comet, Loeb has continued to entertain the idea that it may have been sent to us by an intelligent species from outside of the solar system — and he's far from backing down.
In a blog post over the weekend, Loeb pointed to observations by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, which showed a "glow of light, likely from a coma, ahead of the motion of 3I/ATLAS towards the Sun."
A coma is the hazy and luminous cloud that surrounds the nucleus of a comet.
However, there's "no evidence for a bright cometary tail in the opposite direction," he wrote, with scientists suggesting it was evidence that dust was evaporating from the object's Sun-facing side.
The observations led Loeb and his colleagues to an intriguing, albeit far-fetched possibility: is the mysterious space object generating "its own light?"
After deliberations with his colleague and Harvard astrophysicist Eric Keto, Loeb suggested that the "simplest interpretation" of 3I/ATLAS' observed "steep brightness profile" is that its nucleus "produces most of the light."
That would also mean that its actual size is much smaller than currently thought, roughly in line with the size of the first two interstellar objects we've observed, 'Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov.
The Harvard astronomer suggested two possibilities: either 3I/ATLAS is naturally emitting radiation because its a "rare fragment from the core of a nearby supernova that is rich in radioactive material" — or it's a "spacecraft powered by nuclear energy, and the dust emitted from its frontal surface might be from dirt that accumulated on its surface during its interstellar travel."
Loeb deemed the former explanation "highly unlikely," and the latter as requiring "better evidence to be viable."
Loeb previously argued that the object's unusual trajectory — which includes suspiciously close flybys of both Earth and Jupiter — and its lack of a visible tail both undermine the theory that it's a comet.
Intriguingly, 3I/ATLAS will come within spitting distance — at least in astronomical terms — of Mars this fall, giving us a tantalizing opportunity to have a first-hand look. Loeb suggested using NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to point its scientific instruments at the rare visitor.
Best of all, scientists at the space agency appear to be game.
"This morning, I encouraged the HiRISE team to use their camera during the first week of October 2025 in order to gather new data on 3I/ATLAS," Loeb wrote. "They responded favorably."
More on the object: Astronomer Suggests New Interstellar Object Could be Advanced Aliens Testing Our Intelligence
Astronomer Suggests New Interstellar Object Could be Advanced Aliens Testing Our Intelligence
Did we just fail the test?
A strange object hurdling through our solar system from interstellar space may, according to one of academia's most controversial astronomers, have been sent by aliens to see how smart we are.
The newly-discovered object, dubbed 3I/ATLAS, is only the third interstellar object of its kind to have been observed visiting our solar system. While most astronomers, including those at NASA, believe it to be a comet, Harvard's resident alien-hunter Avi Loeb has repeatedly suggested that it was sent to us by an extraterrestrial civilization — and may even function as something of a "Turing Test" for humanity.
In a new blog post, Loeb — who has become infamous in scientific circles for suggesting 'Oumuamua, the first interstellar object ever detected back in 2017, was an alien spacecraft — laid out his latest theory about 3I/ATLAS.
It is well known to any interstellar traveler that there are plenty of icy rocks in planetary systems," Loeb wrote. "These constitute the leftover building blocks from the construction process of the planets."
"For that reason, an alien might assume that any intelligent observer on Earth must be familiar with space rocks as they impact the Earth on a regular basis," he continued, before advising: "Not so fast."
Though his case for 3I/ATLAS being a Turing Test sent by alien intelligence is pretty far-fetched, his insistence that his fellow scientists lack even human smarts is well-argued.
Citing "terrestrial comet expert" Chris Lintott of Oxford, who insisted last month that Loeb's alien-origin theory is "nonsense on stilts, and is an insult to the exciting work going on to understand this object," the Harvard alien hunter suggested that any extraterrestrial being who encountered such dismissals could "justifiably conclude that humans failed the test and do not deserve a high status in the class of intelligent civilizations within the Milky-Way galaxy."
Ouch.
As the Harvard astronomer has contended, the scientific establishment at large may have gotten it wrong by immediately declaring 3I/ATLAS to be a comet. He pointed out new Hubble Space Telescope images of the object to back up his claim, which show a "glow" ahead of it, but "no prominent cometary tail behind it, as is the case for common comets."
Loeb also pointed out that spectroscopic measurements do not indicate that there's any "molecular or atomic gas accompanying the glow around 3I/ATLAS," further undermining the theory that it's a comet.
To Loeb, there is one predominant alternative explanation about the origins of 3I/ATLAS if it's not a comet: that it's "a technological object which targets the inner solar system," and even perfectly times its "arrival time" for "a close encounter with Mars, Venus and Jupiter."
Obviously, in a Universe as vast and unknowable as our own, there are other, non-alien explanations for all those anomalous properties seen in 3I/ATLAS.
To test his alien-origin theory out, Loeb has another, even more provocative proposal: sending a Morse code message to 3I/ATLAS, and seeing if anything (or anyone) responds. When speaking to reporters, the astronomer said that his ideal communiqué would be "Hello, welcome to our neighborhood. Peace!"
As easy as it may be to dismiss Loeb's constant stream of strange alien claims, he does offer a fascinating alternate look at space rocks, and his notion that "3I/ATLAS is a blind date of interstellar proportions" is indeed pretty romantic to consider.
"As an optimist, I prefer to approach it with a positive mindset," Loeb wrote of the interstellar object. "How we follow the initial greeting with alien intelligence would depend on the data we gather."
More on 3I/ATLAS: Congressperson Urges NASA to Send Its Jupiter Probe Chasing in Pursuit of the Weird Visitor Coming From Interstellar Space
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