Harvard astronomer warns interstellar object moving towards Earth could 'save us or destroy us'
Loeb is pointing towards 31/ATLAS, which was first spotted by a Chile-based telescope, which is part of the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS). Initially, it appeared as an unknown asteroid that was on a path approaching the Earth's orbit.
Later on, a report about the observation was sent to the Minor Planet Center, the official authority which looks after the observation and reporting of new asteroids and other bodies in the solar system.
According to scientists, the object is over 12 miles wide and moving at a pace of 37 miles per second. NASA states that it could be within about 130 million miles of the Earth on October 30, USA Today reported.
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'Hostile' alien technology
A trio of researchers, led by Dr Avi Loeb, recently came out with a paper speculating that this mysterious object could be a "hostile" alien technology.
The paper, which is yet to be peer-reviewed, was uploaded to the preprint server arXiv on July 16. It is touted to be a "pedagogical exercise" that examines the unusual trajectory of 3I/ATLAS.
Speaking to CNN on Thursday, Loeb said that the brightness of this mysterious object "implies a diameter of 20 km, and there is not enough rocky material in interstellar space to deliver such a giant object per decade".
He highlighted that usually it takes 10,000 years for this much mass to arrive to the "inner part of the solar system."
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He stated that the object will be closest to the planet when the Earth is on the opposite side of the Sun. This means that people will not be able to see it.
Moreover, the researcher thinks that there is a possibility that the celestial object could be an engineered one and not natural.
"I'm not saying it's an alien technology... I'm just saying it doesn't look like a very common thing, and actually, the glow that is around this object, usually for comets, you see a trailing tail behind the object and here the glow from the Hubble Space Telescope image is actually in front of the object," Independent quoted Loeb as saying.
He said we need to carefully examine such interstellar objects that are entering our solar system to ensure that they are harmless.
'(31/ATLAS) may come to save us or destroy us... We'd better be ready for both options and check whether all interstellar objects are rocks," he said.
FAQs
Who is Dr Avi Loeb?
He is the chair of the astronomy department at Harvard. Loeb even serves as the co-founder of the Galileo Project, which is dedicated to the search for extraterrestrials.
What is 3I/ATLAS?
The unknown asteroid was first spotted by a telescope in Chile.
What's the size of 3I/ATLAS?
Scientists have estimated 3I/ATLAS to be over 12 miles wide.
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