Avi Loeb claims comet 3I/ATLAS’ structural integrity supports alien theory

This comet had its sunscreen on.

Recent photos reveal that 3I/ATLAS did not disintegrate during its recent fly-by of the sun, leading Harvard scientist Loeb to double down on suggesting that it could be artificial — although other space experts have their doubts.

The photos, snapped on November 11 by the Nordic Optical Telescope in Spain’s Canary Islands, show that the entity “continues as an active, single body, with no evidence for breakup following the recent perihelion passage (a point in a celestial body’s orbit when its closest to the sun).”

Loeb, who previously floated the theory that ATLAS could be fragmenting, argued that this made the natural comet theory seem unlikely.

He claimed that the cosmic body’s gargantuan jets suggested a mass loss rate too high for something of 3I/ATLAS’s size to remain intact were it an organic ball of gas and ice.

“The surface area required to account for the mass flow in the large-scale jets — extending out to a million kilometers (620,000) towards the Sun in an image obtained on Monday, is untenable,” the researcher told the Post. “Given the solar power per unit area, the jets require an object larger than Manhattan island.”

He added, “A large surface area can be provided by breaking up the object to many fragments. But this does not appear to be the case from the latest image obtained by the Nordic Optical Telescope.”

Per a recent post on Medium Loeb calculated that, at perihelion distance, “the Sun provided 700 Joules (standard energy units) per square meter per second, requiring an absorbing area larger than 1,600 square kilometers (617 square miles).”

“That’s much bigger than we expect for the size of the object based on the data we had from the Hubble telescope back on July 21,” Loeb previously told The Post.

He declared in the Medium essay that the above numbers were “untenable for 3I/ATLAS as a single body that maintained its integrity and did not break up into numerous fragments.”

Loeb also claimed the photos showed an anti-tail that pointed toward the sun rather than away as it typical of comets.

What accounts for ATLAS’ alleged anomalous structural integrity and bizarre jets?

Loeb speculated in the Post that the spacely streamers could be “technological thrusters which point their exhaust towards the sun” as that “would accelerate away from the Sun.”

“This post-perihelion maneuver might be employed by a spacecraft that aims to gain speed rather than slow down through the gravitational assist from the Sun,” he argued.

In a previous blog, he explained that so-called extraterrestrial rocket boosters would allow ATLAS to remain intact during perihelion, as they’d require a much smaller mass loss as “to produce the observed jets around 3I/ATLAS.”

However, other space experts have thrown cold water on Loeb’s theory, claiming that 3I/ATLAS is exhibiting natural cometary behavior.

“The fact that 3I/ATLAS did not disintegrate is exactly in-line with what I expected to happen,” Michigan State University astronomy professor Darryl Seligman told The Post.

He based this assertion on the size of ATLAS’ nucleus, which he said was around “1 km (0.6), since our evidence based on HST observations is that its less than a few km” — although still “pretty large for a comet.”

He estimated the spin up time — is the time it takes for the speed of that rotation of a comet to dramatically increase due to shedding gases and other factors — based on measurements of other comets. If the comet rotates fast enough, the nucleus can disintegrate.

From these calculations, Seligman estimated that spin up time would be about “100ish years,” making it highly unlikely that ATLAS would spin itself to pieces during perihelion.

Even if did rotate out of existence, this wouldn’t necessarily be an indication that ATLAS was artificial.

“If it were to, then that would be evidence that the nucleus was a lot smaller, or the activity was more rigorous than in most comets – which also could make sense since its interstellar and has never been this close to a star before,” said Seligman. “So I at one point looked into it to see if we would expect a disintegration event, and decided it was pretty unlikely based on the spin up time associated with most comets.”

On Oct. 24, the MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa provided yet another clue supporting ATLAS’ cometary identity after picking up the first-ever radio signal from 3I/Atlas.

The telescope, which failed to detect anything on two prior attempts in September, reportedly detected “radio absorption lines by hydroxyl radicals,” which are created when water molecules are broken down by sunlight.

This suggests that ATLAS is a comet that’s losing water when flying by the sun and not an alien entity.