Interstellar object hurtling through our solar system may bring life from distant world
Spotted on Monday, Hubble has helped astronomers confirm that the massive, high-speed visitor is a comet from a distant part of the Milky Way galaxy.
First spotted in late June, the comet named 3I/ATLAS has been on an 800-million-year journey to reach this solar system.
The new images from Hubble captured what appears to be an icy tail that's ejecting rocky material from its 12-mile-long core.
Those observations were reinforced by a new study published Tuesday morning which revealed 3I/ATLAS has water ice present in its coma, the luminous cloud of gas and dust surrounding a comet's nucleus.
That revelation about 3I/ATLAS also confirmed that life-giving water exists far beyond our solar system, carried by comets throughout the cosmos, and potentially spreading the building blocks of life to other worlds.
The giant comet has become the third interstellar object recorded by astronomers entering the solar system, joining Oumuamua in 2017 and the comet Borisov in 2019.
It will make its closest pass to Earth on December 17 as it speeds through the solar system at 41 miles per second (roughly 150,000 miles per hour).
The new study published on the pre-print server arXiv, also revealed that the comet's coma is made up of 30 percent water ice and 70 percent of a dust similar to a type of meteorite (Tagish Lake) that contains organic materials.
While the study didn't detect organic molecules directly, the reddish dust in 3I/ATLAS resembles D-type asteroids, which are known to sometimes carry simple organic compounds like amino acids or hydrocarbons.
These are the kinds of molecules that could, under the right conditions, contribute to the chemistry needed for life on a distant planet.
Since 3I/ATLAS is an interstellar object - meaning it has traveled between star systems - it could theoretically visit other planetary systems.
If it collided with a planet or released its material into a planet's atmosphere, it might deposit water and possibly organic molecules on those worlds.
This process, called panspermia, is the idea that life's building blocks (or even simple life forms) could be transferred between worlds by objects like comets or asteroids.
Here on Earth, a 2022 study published in Nature Communications found the five building blocks for DNA and RNA in several carbon-rich meteorites discovered around the world.
Scientists have said this and similar discoveries support the theory that the origins of life on Earth were delivered by meteorites and other cosmic bodies like 3I/ATLAS billions of years ago.
The comet is by far the biggest known interstellar visitor to pass through the solar system.
At 12 miles long, it dwarfs Oumuamua, which was only about 300 to 1,300 feet long, and Borisov's core, which was about half a mile in diameter.
Scientists don't believe 3I/ATLAS poses any threat to Earth. That's good news because the object would fall into the category of a 'planet killer' - likely causing an extinction-level event if it struck the Earth.
On its current trajectory, it'll come within 2.4 astronomical units of the planet (223 million miles) in mid-December.
An astronomical unit (AU) is equal to the distance between Earth and the sun, 93 million miles. Technically, the comet has already entered the solar system, and was less than four AU away from Earth after its discovery in early July.
In October, the object from outside the solar system is expected to make its closest pass to a planet, coming within 0.4 AU (37 million miles) of Mars.
To reach these findings, scientists took optical spectra (light measurements in the visible range) to see the colors in the comet's dust.
Astronomers then used the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility to measure near-infrared light, which helped detect materials like water ice.
The presence of water ice also hints that 3I/ATLAS formed in a cold, distant part of its original solar system, providing a clue about its origins and showing similarities to comets in our solar system.
Harvard physicist Avi Loeb and student researcher Shokhruz Kakharov previously traced the path of the interstellar object to a thicker part of the Milky Way galaxy's disk, where older stars are found.
They have estimated that 3I/ATLAS is older than our sun, which is 4.6 billion years old.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
2 hours ago
- Telegraph
The future of Alien, without Sigourney Weaver
In space, no one can hear you scream. But what about down here? Well, we're about to find out. Having spent seven movies in the furthest reaches of the galaxy, the Alien franchise, begun by Ridley Scott in 1979, is about to be, quite literally, brought down to Earth. In Noah Hawley's upcoming Disney+ TV series, Alien: Earth, a research vessel owned by the megacorp Weyland-Yutani, familiar from the films, crash-lands into the Bangkok of 2120 (two years before the events onboard the spaceship Nostromo in the first Alien film). The crash brings HR Giger's unmistakable Xenomorph, plus a whole host of other nasty intergalactic beasties, to our planet. The snappy new tagline tells you all you need to know: 'We were safer in space.' Hawley – the writer-director known for his innovative take on Marvel superheroes in Legion and his daring extension of Coen Brothers' lore in the Fargo anthology series – has given the sci-fi horror franchise another twist. Alongside the familiar 'synths' – the unsettling androids made famous in the franchise by Ian Holm, Lance Henriksen and (in the Prometheus films) Michael Fassbender – and cybernetically enhanced 'cyborgs' (humans with hi-tech additions), Hawley has introduced an even more troubling creation: the 'hybrid'. These are synthetic beings downloaded with human consciousness, created by a shadowy corporation named Prodigy. In this case, the consciousness of a group of terminally ill children, who become known as 'the Lost Boys'. Forget Alien, this is Frankenstein for the 21st century. 'The first idea when I started thinking about Alien was the fact it's not just a monster movie,' says Hawley. 'The Ian Holm reveal – that he was a synthetic. He was artificial intelligence, and that artificial intelligence was trying to kill them.' When Hawley began writing the show, 'ChatGPT didn't exist', but the series' central question about our reliance on and suspicion of AI has become eerily prescient. 'It's like Noah saw into the future,' says Sydney Chandler, who plays Wendy, the leader of the Lost Boys and the central figure of Alien: Earth. It is the past, however, that has inspired Hawley. The look and feel, particularly in the opening scene, is pure 1970s. Andy Nicholson, the production designer, pored slavishly over the original two films (1979's Alien and James Cameron's 1986 follow-up Aliens). He used the Nostromo as a blueprint for the vessels and taking inspiration from 1970s Italian furniture and car interiors. 'We decided it should be the future as imagined in 1979,' says Nicholson, 'and not to go in the direction of Prometheus'. Scott, an executive producer on the project, was happy to let them get on with it. 'Every time I spoke to him, he was storyboarding,' says Hawley. 'First House of Gucci, then The Last Duel, and then Napoleon. He made at least three movies while I was making one season of television.' Both Hawley and Nicholson are careful not to criticise Scott's Prometheus movies, but it's clear they want a clean break from them. 'The 1970s movie-ness of Ridley's film and the very 1980s movie-ness of Cameron's film, those were a big part of it for me,' says Hawley. 'Prometheus is a prequel, but one in which the technology feels thousands of years more futuristic. So I had a choice. And there was just no way to make Alien without the retrofuturism of technology.' Indeed, much of the look has stuck so closely to the first two films' concepts that many of the original designers have been given production credits on Alien: Earth. This is seen most starkly in the very first few minutes of the show, which begins just as Alien did, with a group of workers on board a vessel bound for Earth, the Weyland-Yutani owned Maginot, waking up from cryostasis. The aesthetic – from the furnishings and computer graphics to the sweaters and the moustaches – is pure 1979. 'I really wanted to send a message that the movie I was most inspired by was Ridley's,' explains Hawley. Even Jeff Russo's soaring score apes that of Jerry Goldsmith's memorable intro music – with a twist. 'You want to pay homage to what came before and yet also forge a new identity – that's the trick, right?' says Russo. As we approach the Maginot, Russo's orchestral title track is assailed by distortion and, most disturbingly, human voices. It's Alien, Jim, but not as we know it. Soon the Maginot, and its mason jars of alien lifeforms, are lying in pieces in Prodigy City, 'New Siam', on a sweltering Earth. Those lifeforms were the major challenge. Hawley decided they could not simply rely upon Giger's world-famous, biomechanical Xenomorph. Nicholson felt the pressure: 'The Xenomorph was the scariest space creature you'd ever seen. And these creatures had to be worse.' Before the Maginot goes down in flames, we see the jars and glass boxes filled with all sorts of primordial, unearthly beings. 'The first movie is rooted so much in body horror and a genetic revulsion about parasites,' says Hawley, 'and this really uncomfortable, pseudosexual, penetrative design aesthetic. So I just went with: what is the worst thing? What makes me the most uncomfortable or repulsed or disgusted?' The answer, seemingly, lies in a creature known as T Ocellus, a grotesque, tentacled octopus/jellyfish thing that seems to be made out of eyes. 'That was the one,' says Nicholson, wincing. 'I saw the design and thought, 'Oh God, who came up with that?'' The jury is out on whether it is the creatures that will scare the living daylights out of viewers or whether it will be Boy Kavalier, a 20-year-old tech trillionaire played by Samuel Blenkin who runs Prodigy and has created the synthetic-human hybrids. In the world of Alien: Earth, humanity is controlled by five megacorporations who, in the style of the East India Company, have largely usurped democratic governments. The companies are in an arms race for control of the Earth, the known galaxy and the future of human life itself. Thus when Weyland-Yutani's ship crashes into Prodigy City, Kavalier smells an opportunity. An unscrupulous tech CEO with a god complex? Which real-life equivalent could Hawley have been thinking of? All of them, he says: 'It's narcissism that defines so many of these figures. The 'Great Man' has come back. And yet in many ways none of them want to grow up. If there's a metaphor between our show and our present moment, it's when you look around at all the really deep, complicated, intrinsic problems that we're having on this planet. What they really require to solve them is adults.' Not wanting to grow up is key to the Peter Pan-obsessed Kavalier, who has named his research facility Neverland and reads the book to the children each night. When they transition to their synthetic bodies, Kavalier rechristens them all from JM Barrie's story – alongside Wendy, there's Slightly, Tootles, Curly, Nibs and Smee. Kavalier, of course, is The Boy Who Never Grew Up. 'He likes that analogy,' says Hawley. 'Peter Pan is a dark book. There's a moment where Peter is angry and frustrated, so he breathes in and out as quickly as he can, because he believes that every breath he takes kills a grown-up. And it is implied that as the Lost Boys mature, he 'thins them out', to keep that out of his world. And those elements felt like they fit, thematically.' Chandler's Wendy is the first of the Lost Boys to transition and acts as a big sister to the others as they get used to their new – adult, superhuman, immortal – bodies. Chandler, the 29-year-old daughter of actor Kyle Chandler (Friday Night Lights, Bloodline), is a relative unknown, yet was determined to land the role. She flew out to Canada, where Fargo was being filmed, the morning after reading the script, and convinced Hawley to let her take him for dinner. Her determination (she calls it 'impulsivity') and passion for the role impressed him. It's a great piece of casting – Chandler imbues Wendy with an otherworldly gawkiness, a disarming innocence and an unnerving unknowability. The actress, understandably, wishes to avoid comparison between Wendy and Sigourney Weaver's Ellen Ripley. 'You can't recreate Alien. You can't recreate Ripley. If the scripts had gone in that direction, I wouldn't have wanted to do it. My goal was to bring as much strength and honesty and integrity and backbone to the character [as I could], because that's what I looked up to when I saw Alien for the first time.' For all the ingenious concepts within Alien, what underpins the franchise is human greed and the extent to which corporations are happy to play God. Like all classic sci-fi, the humans in the TV series unleash forces they can no longer control. Does Hawley feel that, via AI, we are at such a point now? 'I don't think AI is going to take my job,' he says. 'But I'm at a rarified level of storytelling, with an idiosyncratic approach. [However] I think if you are a writer on Law & Order, you should be worried.' But Hawley has bigger concerns, and they can be seen in the blood, guts and synth fluid of Alien: Earth. 'Europe does a much better job of regulating technology and thinking about the human implications of it. In the US, it's still about the dollar. And I worry there are no brakes on this train, because the people who would be the brakes are not incentivised to slow it down. I worry it's going to get away from us very quickly. If it hasn't already.'
The Sun
2 hours ago
- The Sun
I was hired by NASA to protect Earth from aliens – here's what happens when they find us… & why it may spark disaster
AN EX-NASA chief has sensationally revealed plans for intelligent alien visitors. John Rummel was twice NASA's Planetary Protection Officer - from 1987 to 1993 and 1997 to 2006. 5 5 5 His objective was to prevent the contamination of other planets during exploratory missions, and also to ensure alien samples didn't contaminate Earth. But he also contemplated what he would do if intelligent aliens were to visit. And Rummel, now retired, has even outlined what could happen if there was a full-scale alien invasion. Rummel told The Sun: 'An alien visitor would provide mutual benefit. 'We could imagine standard microbial sampling, such as swabs and wipes for our part. 'Conceptually, it could be like the Danish film, The Visit, where we have somebody who is coming here but not invading, and they're interested in finding out more. 'I would insist we sample the visitor to make sure we have no microbial hitchhikers and also that we do not introduce anything to hurt the visitor. 'As for alien invasions, you could end up with the Martians being killed off by the first pathogenic bacteria, and the other way around. 'If we go to Mars, we become the Martians. We have to be careful that when we do get there we don't bring back unknowns that might otherwise be a problem. 'A lot of people go, oh well, we haven't found life on Mars so far, so it shouldn't be a problem. 'There are a lot of people with big enough egos to say 'trust me'. 'But that's not really a good idea. Ignorance is not bliss. Let's go ahead and take some data.' He added: 'We are just getting started in looking for signs of life. I will vote for aliens finding us first. 'We are otherwise in the 'selfie' stage of understanding what to look for, and where.' Rummel said there were no official NASA plans to prepare for an invasion, insisting his views are personal. But in that scenario, he says the agency would be unlikely to have any jurisdiction for a response. Rummel spoke after his successor, Catharine Conley, exclusively told The Sun she had been fired by NASA in 2013 for claiming its plan to return Mars samples to Earth was not safe, something Rummel agrees with. Conley said her job, like Rummel's, was to protect Earth from rogue alien life entering the atmosphere. But she believes that if there was an alien invasion, the response would be led by the US Air Force. 5 Mars facts Here's what you need to know about the red planet... Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun It is named after the Roman god of war The landmass of Mars is very similar to Earth, but due to the difference in gravity, you could jump three times higher there than you can here. Mars is mountainous and hosts the tallest mountain known in the Solar System called Olympus Mons, which is three times higher than Everest Mars is considered the second most habitable planet after Earth. It takes the planet 687 Earth days to orbit the Sun The planet has a diameter of 4,212 miles, and has an average distance from Earth of 140 million miles Martian temperatures can vary wildly, reaching as high as 70F/20C or as low as -225F/-153C She told The Sun: 'They would very much more likely be tiny little aliens. 'But if there were any intelligent ones, that would be the Air Force's problem, not NASA's, at least for the US. 'But again, we don't know what we're preparing for.' Rummel continued to work for NASA as a senior scientist at the Astrobiology Program after leaving his PPO role before retiring. He added: 'If somebody were to come in and land on the Earth, it's unlikely that they're going to cause a problem in my opinion. 'But I wouldn't trust my opinion on this because I don't have data. 'I believe that there's life out there but it wouldn't consider itself alien. Because they're out there and we're the aliens if we go out there. 'They're not the aliens themselves. I hope intelligent alien life is out there, and I certainly think it could be. We have a chance of seeing them in our lifetime. 'It changes all the time, but the search for extra terrestrial intelligence or technology has the potential to reveal if there's something else going on in the galaxy that's not us. 'At one point in time, I was the SETI program person at NASA headquarters. "And some very smart people are dedicated to seeing what's out there.' 5 NASA says on its website it hopes to send humans to Mars as early as the 2030s to explore signs of alien life. It was planning to return Mars samples before then as part of its Mars Sample Return (MSR) campaign. But that has been scrapped by Donald Trump's cuts, and NASA instead says it anticipates returning samples through lower-cost options. China remains on course with its own plans to return Mars samples through its Tianwen-3 Mars mission, set for launch in 2028 and bringing samples back by 2031. Rummel says he agrees with Catharine that NASA's current plans to bring samples back to Earth are not safe. But he says he'll be keeping an eager eye on the Chinese. He said: 'Mars sample return by robotic space vehicles is not currently funded by the US, so Catharine is right. 'It will be interesting to see the details of whatever the Chinese do.' He added: 'The bottom line is that we're looking for life on Mars and if we think there's a credible possibility of finding life on Mars, then it would be nice to know something about whether or not that life form was benign or whether or not it somehow might affect us.' 'You don't want it to go badly.' The Sun has approached NASA for a response to Rummel's comments. On questions surrounding the safety of samples returned to Mars, NASA previously said: "It is anticipated that future missions to Mars will return samples for study on Earth. "NASA will never compromise on safety." How long does it take to get to Mars? It's not that short of a trip... There's an immense distance between Earth and Mars, which means any trip to the red planet will take a very long time It's also made more complicated by the fact that the distance is constantly changing as the two planets rotate around the sun The closest that the Earth and Mars would ever be is a distance of 33.9million miles – that's 9,800 times the distance between London and New York That's really rare though: the more useful distance is the average, which is 140million miles Scientists on Earth have already launched a whole bunch of spacecraft to (or near) Mars, so we have a rough idea of how long it takes with current technology Historically, the trip has taken anywhere from 128 to 333 days – admittedly a huge length of time for humans to be on board a cramped spacecraft.
The Independent
14 hours ago
- The Independent
Scientists make revelation about origins of life on Earth
Scientists suggest that life on Earth may have originated from outer space, implying its potential widespread presence across the universe. Researchers have discovered complex organic molecules, considered precursors to life's building blocks, within a disc surrounding a protostar. This finding addresses a crucial missing link, demonstrating that these complex molecules can survive the violent process of a protostar evolving into a young star. The survival of these molecules means they can be inherited by planet-forming discs, suggesting that life could be more abundant than previously thought. The significant findings have been reported in a new study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
