“If You Want to Take a Vacation, Take It Before Then”

Interstellar object 3I/ATLAS is anticipated to attain its perihelion, or the closest level to the Sun in its extremely eccentric path through our photo voltaic system, on October 29. Earlier this week, it reached its photo voltaic conjunction, which means it’s on the precise reverse aspect of the Sun relative to Earth.

And while scientists have gathered important evidence that the weird customer from another star system is a comet, largely made up of carbon dioxide ice, Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb hasn’t given up his suspicion that it’s instead an huge “mothership” that was despatched to us by an clever extraterrestrial civilization.

Loeb has repeatedly identified all of the item’s “anomalies,” from its huge suspected dimension to its uncommon trajectory that took it suspiciously close to Mars earlier this month.

In a new weblog post, Loeb steered that if 3I/ATLAS have been to be a spacecraft, it might use its proximity to the Sun’s highly effective gravitational pull to either speed up or slow itself down — while conveniently hiding behind our star.

“If you want to take a vacation, take it before [October 29], because who knows what will happen?” Loeb told science communicator and creator Mayim Bialik in a September interview.

Loeb pointed to one of the most important dynamics in space journey to help his principle that 3I/ATLAS — if it’s certainly a spacecraft — could use its perihelion to enhance its velocity.

“As a result of this so-called Oberth effect, it is most energy-efficient for a spacecraft engine to burn its fuel when its orbital velocity is greatest,” Loeb explained, referring to a physics precept which determines that a rocket engine generates more vitality when it’s fired at a greater pace.

The astronomer reiterated his speculation that the item could release smaller probes to get a better understanding of our neighborhood.

“If 3I/ATLAS is a massive mothership, it will likely continue along its original gravitational path and ultimately exit the Solar system,” he added. “In that case, the Oberth maneuver might apply to the mini-probes it releases at perihelion towards Solar system planets.”

According to Loeb, the “optimal time” to alter its velocity is its perihelion next week. However, to him, the timing raises even more tantalizing questions.

“This opportune time happens to be during the same period when it is hidden from view to Earth-based telescopes,” he posited. “Was this a mere coincidence or a result of orbital design and basic astronautics?”

Loeb’s speculation that 3I/ATLAS was despatched to us by an alien civilization has prompted loads of skepticism. Members of the scientific community have repeatedly thrown cold water on Loeb’s eyebrow-raising concept.

“It looks like a comet,” Tom Statler, NASA’s lead scientist for photo voltaic system small our bodies, told The Guardian last month. “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 at the time, while still conceding that it has “some interesting properties that are a little bit different from our solar system comets.”

However, while even Loeb lately admitted that there’s only a slim likelihood that 3I/ATLAS was technological in origin, the astronomer isn’t giving up hope.

“Science is guided by evidence and not by expectations,” he wrote in his latest weblog. “We can find the answer to the above question by monitoring the sky during November and December 2025, and searching for any unusual activity of 3I/ATLAS or any new objects that came out of it.”

“As of now, 3I/ATLAS appears most likely to be a natural comet,” Loeb added. “But the remote possibility of an Oberth maneuver must be considered seriously as a black swan event with a small probability, because of its huge implications for humanity.”

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