WASHINGTON DC – Nasa has called an urgent briefing Nov. 19 to share a series of updates on the mysterious “interstellar object”. The event will take place at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
The so-called “alien visitor”, currently steaming towards our planet after rounding the Sun, has become the centre of a raging debate over its true origins.
But on Nov. 19 at 3 PM eastern NASA will be hosting a live event to share new images of the comet, officially designated 3I/ATLAS.
The “probe” is only the third object ever to travel through our solar system from elsewhere in the galaxy.
And just days ago, astronomers shed further light on 3I/ATLAS’s makeup.
David Jewitt and Jane Luu found the visitor’s body was intact having travelled around our star.
It was surrounded by a glowing coma – a plume of gas that is stretched out in two directions, one pointing toward the sun and another away from it.
Some claim this adds to Harvard astrophysicist Professor Avi Loeb’s theory that the comet may have alien origins.
The double-direction gas prompted Prof Loeb to speculate 3I/ATLAS may actually have “thrusters”.
“Technological thrusters which point their exhaust towards the sun would accelerate away from the Sun,” the professor said.
“This post-perihelion manoeuvre might be employed by a spacecraft that aims to gain speed rather than slow down through the gravitational assist from the Sun.”
His words came just as US Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna revealed how some information about the visitor was being withheld from the public.
Ms Luna said she had been denied access to US Government records about the object and claimed members of the US intelligence community blocking the truth behind 3I/ATLAS.
“I do believe it’s a passing through comet, and so I don’t think we are going to have any contact with any non-human intelligence yet, but the ruling is still out there on what this is,” she told NewsMax.
Nasa insists that 3I/ATLAS poses no threat to Earth and will stay at a safe distance.
The comet’s closest approach to our planet will see it pass us some 170 million miles away.
NASA will host a live event at 3 p.m. EST, Wednesday, Nov. 19, to share imagery of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS collected by a number of the agency’s missions. The event will take place at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
The event will air on NASA+, the NASA app, the agency’s website and YouTube channel, and Amazon Prime.
Briefing participants include:
- NASA Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya
- Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate
- Shawn Domagal-Goldman, acting director, Astrophysics Division
- Tom Statler, lead scientist for solar system small bodies
Assets within NASA’s science missions give the United States the unique capability to observe 3I/ATLAS almost the entire time it passes through our celestial neighborhood, and study – with complementary scientific instruments and from different directions – how the comet behaves. These assets include both spacecraft across the solar system, as well as ground-based observatories.
For more information on 3I/ATLAS, visit:
