Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb has said it is an ‘extraordinary coincidence’ that the rumoured ‘alien spaceship’ 3I/ATLAS will be in the perfect location to drop probes onto Jupiter
The trajectory of 3I/ATLAS suggests it will deploy satellites to spy on Jupiter for an advanced alien “civilisation”, a Harvard boffin has suggested. Theoretical physicist Avi Loeb has been leading speculation that the so-called comet is actually a “spaceship”.
The suggestion that humanity is not alone in the universe caused such a stir that NASA held a press conference to address the rumours. The US space agency boffins shut down the speculation calling 3I/ATLAS a “comet”.
However, Prof Loeb has continued on his extra-terrestrial crusade. He pointed to the trajectory of the mysterious space lump which shows it will get close enough to Jupiter to deploy satellites on March 16 next year.
The Israeli-American scientist told the New York Post the bizarre path of the “comet” could be used to “seed” probes into the orbit of the gas planet. The aliens may have been attracted to Jupiter because it is the biggest in our solar system.
The “alien spaceship” will be 53.445 million kilometers (over 33.209 million miles) from Jupiter just before St Patrick’s Day next year, according to NASA calculations. 3I/ATLAS will be in the range of Jupiter’s Hill Radius – the point at which the gas planet’s gravity dominates that of the Sun.
It takes very little fuel for objects to remain stable in this range, making it the perfect location to drop “satellites”. Prof Loeb said it was an “extraordinary coincidence” that 31/ATLAS was set to travel on this path.
Previously, Prof Loeb claimed the “multi-jet structure” will arrive at its closest to Earth on December 19 in what could be our closest ever encounter with alien life and technology.
“This multi-jet structure constitutes a remarkable target for future observations with the Hubble and Webb telescopes, as 3I/ATLAS will arrive at closest approach to Earth on December 19, 2025,” he said as per Medium. “Its minimal distance from Earth will be 269 million kilometers, about a hundred times larger than the extent of the jet structure in today’s images.”
However, the Harvard boffin added the “space ship” is likely to be hidden from us, with Earth-based satellites unable to capture what is going on with these “jets”. Dr Loeb said: “It is therefore unlikely that particle probes on Earth-based satellites will be able to capture particles from these jets.
“The same holds for the particle detectors on NASA’s Juno spacecraft around Jupiter, which will probe 3I/ATLAS on March 16, 2026 from a distance of 53 million kilometers, an order of magnitude larger than the extent of the current jet structure.
“Similarly, ESA’s Juice spacecraft on its way to Jupiter, is currently 64 million kilometers from 3I/ATLAS and unable to intercept these jets.”
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