Interstellar object 3I/ATLAS is expected to make its closest pass of the Earth just under a month from now, coming within around 170 million miles of us.
Three months later, it’s expected to get even closer to Jupiter as it continues on its highly eccentric path through the solar system.
And as Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb — who has long championed the theory that 3I/ATLAS could be an alien spacecraft, to the increasing dismay of the mainstream research community — points out on his blog, recent “non-gravitational acceleration” seems to have nudged it toward a fascinating region of Jupiter’s orbit.
Specifically, it’s going to zip right past Jupiter’s Hill radius, the boundary inside which the gas giant can keep an object in its own orbit without it being stolen by the Sun.
In the Earth’s vicinity, Lagrange points L1 and L2 are close to the boundary of our planet’s Hill radius, a perfect place of equilibrium for satellites and other human-made objects, such as the James Webb Space Telescope, to orbit the Sun while using minimal amounts of fuel.
Loeb suggests that if it is indeed an alien spacecraft, 3I/ATLAS could be passing through Jupiter’s Hill radius to “seed” the planet with “technological devices.”
“If we find technological satellites of Jupiter that we did not send, it would imply that Jupiter is of interest to an extraterrestrial civilization,” Loeb wrote.
But not everybody’s on board, including NASA. In light of considerable evidence that the mysterious visitor is a comet made of ice and dust, NASA associate administrator Amit Kshatriya preemptively shut down Loeb’s theorizing during a recent announcement, angering him in the process.
During its closest approach to the Sun last month, 3I/ATLAS got a push in the form of “non-gravitational acceleration.” While a more conventional explanation would suggest the Sun’s radiation heated the object up, causing it to lose more mass and thereby accelerate, Loeb suggested at the time that it could “be the technological signature of an internal engine.”
Intriguingly, that extra push will allow it to get within around 53 million miles of Jupiter on March 16, which also happens to be within just 160,000 miles of the planet’s Hill radius.
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