A strange object hurdling through our solar system from interstellar space may, according to one of academia's most controversial astronomers, have been sent by aliens to see how smart we are.
The newly-discovered object, dubbed 3I/ATLAS, is only the third interstellar object of its kind to have been observed visiting our solar system. While most astronomers, including those at NASA, believe it to be a comet, Harvard's resident alien-hunter Avi Loeb has repeatedly suggested that it was sent to us by an extraterrestrial civilization — and may even function as something of a "Turing Test" for humanity.
In a new blog post, Loeb — who has become infamous in scientific circles for suggesting 'Oumuamua, the first interstellar object ever detected back in 2017, was an alien spacecraft — laid out his latest theory about 3I/ATLAS.
"It is well known to any interstellar traveler that there are plenty of icy rocks in planetary systems," Loeb wrote. "These constitute the leftover building blocks from the construction process of the planets."
"For that reason, an alien might assume that any intelligent observer on Earth must be familiar with space rocks as they impact the Earth on a regular basis," he continued, before advising: "Not so fast."
Though his case for 3I/ATLAS being a Turing Test sent by alien intelligence is pretty far-fetched, his insistence that his fellow scientists lack even human smarts is well-argued.
Citing "terrestrial comet expert" Chris Lintott of Oxford, who insisted last month that Loeb's alien-origin theory is "nonsense on stilts, and is an insult to the exciting work going on to understand this object," the Harvard alien hunter suggested that any extraterrestrial being who encountered such dismissals could "justifiably conclude that humans failed the test and do not deserve a high status in the class of intelligent civilizations within the Milky-Way galaxy."
Ouch.
As the Harvard astronomer has contended, the scientific establishment at large may have gotten it wrong by immediately declaring 3I/ATLAS to be a comet. He pointed out new Hubble Space Telescope images of the object to back up his claim, which show a "glow" ahead of it, but "no prominent cometary tail behind it, as is the case for common comets."
Loeb also pointed out that spectroscopic measurements do not indicate that there's any "molecular or atomic gas accompanying the glow around 3I/ATLAS," further undermining the theory that it's a comet.
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