No Aliens: NASA Shows Images of 3I/ATLAS

No, that's not an alien spaceship: The US space agency National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has released new images of the celestial body 3I/ATLAS. NASA also didn't conceal anything; it simply wasn't working due to the shutdown.

After the end of the budget freeze, NASA presented a series of images of the comet at a press conference a series of images of the comet. The observation campaign encompassed the entire solar system, NASA announced. So far, twelve probes have captured images of 3I/ATLAS on its journey through the solar system. More are expected to follow.

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NASA-Bilder des Kometen 3I/ATLAS (4 Bilder)

The images presented by NASA come from, among others, the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) and Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) probes, which observed the comet as it disappeared behind the sun from Earth's perspective. The images taken from the closest distance were captured by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) probes. The comet passed them at a distance of 30 million kilometers. Even the Perseverance rover observed 3I/ATLAS.

Glimpses into alien worlds

"By observing the comet from so many locations, NASA has the opportunity to learn more about how 3I/ATLAS differs from the comets in our solar system and to provide scientists with new insights into how other systems differ from our own," the space agency announced.

3I/ATLAS was discovered in early July and is only the third known celestial body to have entered our solar system from interstellar space. This is what "3I" stands for. "ATLAS" is an abbreviation for Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, an automated early warning system for asteroids. This system includes several observatories that detected the celestial body.

Since then, there have been a number of further sightings, including in early October by the European Space Agency ESA, whose Trace Gas Orbiter probe observed the comet from Mars orbit. China's counterpart, the China National Space Administration (CSNA), also released images. However, for a long time, nothing came from NASA.

Tail or no tail?

This led some, including Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb, to speculate that 3I/ATLAS was an alien spacecraft and that NASA was concealing it. One reason for this was that no tail was visible in the initial images. Images of this have been provided by the NASA probe Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH).

"This object is a comet," emphasized Deputy NASA Director Amit Kshatrya, according to the US online magazine Ars Technica. "It looks like a comet, behaves like a comet, all indications point to it being a comet." The trivial reason why NASA didn't release anything about 3I/ATLAS for so long was that it largely ceased operations due to the budget freeze. The agency has now made up for this at the press conference.

3I/ATLAS will come closest to Earth on December 19th. It will approach us to just over 273 million kilometers -- that's almost twice the distance from the Earth to the sun.

(wpl)