3I/Atlas could be 'Trojan Horse' - 40% chance it's alien tech masquerading as a comet, scientist says

Harvard scientist Avi Loeb has once again claimed that 3I/Atlas, the third interstellar visitor, could be an alien piece of technology coming to probe Earth. In an interview, details of which he shared in his blog, Loeb said there is a chance that this visitor is not a natural object. He assigned "a 30–40% likelihood that 3I/ATLAS does not have a fully natural origin," based on the seven anomalies the object has exhibited. The professor claims there is a "low-probability scenario" wherein it turns out that it is "a Trojan Horse", meaning "a technological object masquerades as a natural comet." He admitted that this figure is not rigid and it will evolve based on further observations in the coming months.

Right now, we are waiting for more images of 3I/Atlas taken by the Mars orbiters, which would have observed it during its flyby of the Red Planet on October 3. A picture of 3I/Atlas taken by the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) has been released by the European Space Agency (ESA). Data from Mars Express is awaited, while NASA has gone completely mum, thanks to the shutdown. The JUICE (Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer) probe sent by the European Space Agency (ESA) is expected to take a closer look in November. Loeb is hopeful of lots of data on the interstellar object in the coming months, which will help decode the true nature of the interstellar visitor.

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Interstellar object 3I/Atlas anomalies

The scientist has so far spotted seven anomalies in 3I/Atlas. First is its size, as he claims its diameter is likely larger than 5 kilometres, with its mass being at least 33 billion tons. That makes it way larger than ʻOumuamua and 2I/Borisov. The object is moving at a speed of 210,000 km/hour, which he says is not possible for a cosmic object of this size.

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Citing the Hubble image, Loeb says that 3I/Atlas does not have a cometary tail. In fact, he says it has an anti-tail, a forward jet of scattered sunlight that is 10 times longer than it is wide. Later pictures showed a small tail, as corroborated by the TGO images as well. The plume of gas around 3I/Atlas mostly consists of nickel and not as much iron, which he says is comparable to industrial nickel alloys. The light from 3I/ATLAS showed extreme negative polarisation, and Loeb thinks this object could be making its own light.

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3I/Atlas trajectory and arrival

The most fascinating and puzzling anomaly he cites is its trajectory. Firstly, 3I/Atlas is aligned with the ecliptic plane of planets around the Sun to within 5 degrees, which he says has only a 0.2% chance of happening. Second, this path will bring it close to at least three planets - Mars, Venus and Jupiter - and this, he says, has a 0.005% likelihood. His other observation and calculation show that the Wow! Signal of 1977 came from the same direction as 3I/Atlas. Could it have beamed the signal?

The Trojan Horse

Loeb says the world should be prepared to battle an enemy that could be just like the Trojan Horse from Greek mythology. Inside a wooden horse that the Trojans brought inside their city were Greek soldiers who emerged at night and opened the gates to the Troy to let the rest of the army in. This event is believed to have brought an end to the Trojan War.