NASA has thrown cold water on Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb's theory that interstellar visitor 3I/ATLAS was sent to us by an extraterrestrial civilization — a sobering albeit unsurprising conclusion that just might put the captivating hypothesis to rest once and for all.
In early July, astronomers first discovered the object, which was only the third interstellar visitor ever detected in the solar system.
Since then, Loeb has advanced the "tantalizing possibility" that 3I/ATLAS was "sent towards the inner solar system by design" and could even be releasing "mini-probes" to explore further.
That's despite a growing consensus that the object is a comet, a ball of ice and dust that offgases material as it screams closer to the Sun.
Loeb has already made waves in scientific circles for asserting that 'Oumuamua, the first interstellar object ever identified back in 2017, may have been sent to us by an alien civilization.
For his more recent claim, Loeb has pointed to 3I/ATLAS' unusual chemical makeup, its peculiar path taking it close to the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, and its enormous suspected size.
But as NASA's lead scientist for solar system small bodies, Tom Statler, told The Guardian that it's far more likely to be a comet.
"It looks like a comet," he said. "It does comet things. It very, very strongly resembles, in just about every way, the comets that we know."
"It's a comet," he concluded.
However, Statler conceded that 3I/ATLAS has "some interesting properties that are a little bit different from our solar system comets."
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