Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb – a guy who knows his shit and is a leading voice when it comes to more conventional astronomical science but also gets angry glares from the rest of his field with his not-so-conventional theories regarding the potential presence of extraterrestrial intelligences in our solar system – is rocking the spaceboat again by asserting that 3I/Atlas, an extrasolar comet currently making its way toward the sun at high speeds, is emitting its own light, Futurism reports.
The unusual observation, captured by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, shows the object sporting a bright coma but conspicuously lacking the typical long tail that should accompany it. Loeb suggests this extraordinary light pattern could be an indication that 3I/Atlas’s nucleus is generating its own illumination – either through radioactive decay from some heretofore unobserved type of supernova debris, which he considers unlikely, or well you already figured out he’s going with this.
There’s no question that 3I/Atlas is truly sui generis as it’s only the third confirmed extrasolar object to have entered our system. The two before it, Oumuamua – which Loeb also argued might’ve been artificial – showed no cometary activity whatsoever while Borisov behaved like an ordinary, locally formed comet. This new one is acting like just half a comet. And kind of the wrong half.