Interstellar comet: space probes must master exploration of 3I/ATLAS
When the exploration of 3//ATLAS is likely to be at its most productive, the interstellar comet will be behind the sun. Space probes will then have to step in.
The Hubble image from 3I/ATLAS
(Image: NASA, ESA, D. Jewitt (UCLA); Image Processing: J. DePasquale (STScI))
When the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS reaches its closest point to the sun in the fall and loses a particularly large amount of material, analyses from Earth will be extremely difficult or impossible. For this reason, an international research team is now advocating the use of space probes distributed throughout the solar system for observations to test various hypotheses.
As the group explains in an article published in advance, the asteroid probe Psyche, probes on Mars, the Jupiter probe Juice and several solar observatories are particularly suitable for this purpose. In addition, the NASA probes Europa Clipper and Lucy as well as the ESA probe Hera could traverse the remains of the coma and possibly analyze its composition directly.
Tense research community
The research group advocates using all possible observation options to investigate 3I/ATLAS. This is because it has been clear since the discovery of the celestial body that it probably comes from the fringes of the Milky Way – of the so-called thick disk. This would not only make it significantly older than the Earth, but it would also come from a time in the evolution of our home galaxy when it formed a particularly large number of stars. The composition of this remnant could therefore reveal whether our theories about this epoch are correct. According to the group, for example, it should contain very little carbon monoxide.
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3I/ATLAS was discovered at the beginning of July with the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) in Chile. Subsequently, however, the object was also detected on older images dating back to June 14. Thanks to these "precoveries", its orbit was quickly determined and it was confirmed that it was only passing through. This is only the third interstellar celestial body to be found passing through our solar system. It will approach the Earth at about 1.6 astronomical units (AU). It is a comet several kilometers in size, and its tail is more than 25,000 kilometers long. At its closest approach to the sun (perihelion), it will be exactly behind the sun for us.
After its discovery, the interstellar comet was photographed by various observatories; the best image to date was taken on July 21 with the Hubble Space Telescope. It shows the comet's icy core surrounded by a cloud of dust. The attempts of the once respected astronomer Avi Loeb to interpret various characteristics of 3I/ATLAS as an indication of a non-natural origin of the object are criticized and not taken seriously in the scientific community.
The research work on the observation possibilities of the celestial body with the various space probes is available in advance on Arxiv.
(mho)
