By Tim Binnall
Seemingly squashing the possibility that mysterious interstellar object 3I/ATLAS is an alien craft, NASA has released new images of the celestial interloper that they insist is, in fact, just a comet. Upon its discovery this past July, the unusual 'visitor' to our solar system sparked considerable speculation that it could be extraterrestrial in nature, with Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb leading the charge. Addressing the growing public interest and concern about the curious object, NASA held a public briefing on Wednesday in which it shared several images of 3I/ATLAS and strongly pushed back against the alien hypothesis.
Not shying away from what he described as "the rumors" surrounding 3I/ATLAS, the space agency's Associate Administrator, Amit Kshatriya, definitively declared, "this object is a comet. It looks and behaves like a comet. And all evidence points to it being a comet." NASA scientists on the panel subsequently explained how they came to that conclusion while providing a variety of images of the 'visitor' captured from a dozen different observational devices, including the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the space agency's Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory, and outbound spacecraft that managed to catch a glimpse of the mysterious celestial traveler.
While the briefing may have elicited a sigh of relief or a groan of dismay from those who feared or hoped that 3I/ATLAS was an alien craft on its way to make first contact with Earth, not everyone was convinced of the comet explanation put forward by the space agency. Responding to the press conference, Loeb wrote on his website that he "was not surprised" by the briefing, lamenting that it provided "no big news" and simply echoed earlier NASA's comet conclusion. He specifically criticized the space agency for not addressing the various anomalies exhibited by the interstellar object
Additionally, he posited that an alien craft traveling through the vastness of space would accumulate "dust and CO2, CO & H2O ices on its surface" that would, in turn, resemble a comet to unknowing observers. With that in mind, he cautioned against jumping to a conclusion about 3I/ATLAS until more refined data and further imaging of the interstellar object could be done. "We all know about the Trojan Horse which appeared unthreatening to the guardians of the City of Troy," he mused, urging that "when monitoring an interstellar visitor, we should not fall prey to traditional thinking but scrutinize new interpretations."