The mysterious object was first spotted earlier this month, and a small group of researchers now think there’s a chance it could be connected to alien technology.
The research, carried out by Avi Loeb, Adam Hibberd, and Adam Crowl, suggests that if this object turns out to be something like alien spyware, it might pose serious risks to our planet.
“This could be intentional to avoid detailed observations from Earth-based telescopes when the object is brightest or when gadgets are sent to Earth from that hidden vantage point.” said Loeb.
In the same study, Loeb mentioned that if something dangerous were to happen afterward, we might need to prepare some kind of defense.
“The retrograde orbital plane of 3I/ATLAS around the Sun lies within 5 degrees of that of Earth… The likelihood for that coincidence out of all random orientations is 0.2 percent.” he shared with Newsweek.
“It might have targeted the inner Solar System as expected from alien technology.”
“By far, the most likely outcome will be that 3I/ATLAS is a completely natural interstellar object, probably a comet.” he added.
“This paper is contingent on a remarkable but, as we shall show, testable hypothesis, to which the authors do not necessarily ascribe, yet is certainly worthy of an analysis and a report.”
Samantha Lawler, an astronomer from the University of Regina, supports this more grounded theory. She said: “All evidence points to this being an ordinary comet that was ejected from another solar system, just as countless billions of comets have been ejected from our own solar system.”
Loeb has also brought up similar ideas in the past. In 2022, he suggested that another object might have been alien technology too.
Lightsails travel using light particles, or photons, to push them through space. However, in his report, Loeb mentioned another possibility.
“Alternatively, a more exotic scenario is that ‘Oumuamua may be a fully operational probe sent intentionally to Earth vicinity by an alien civilization.'” he wrote back then.
