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A Harvard astrophysicist who believes the Manhattan-sized comet hurtling towards Earth could possibly be fueled by alien technology has invited Kim Kardashian to join his research team — after she got a quick response from the federal government.
Kardashian asked NASA’s acting administrator Sean Duffy on X last week to spill the “tea” on 3I/ATLAS, the mysterious interstellar comet that’s baffled scientists like Avi Loeb with its anomalous qualities.
“Great question!” Duffy promptly responded to Kardashian’s query. “@NASA’s observations show that this is the third interstellar comet to pass through our solar system.
“No aliens. No threat to life here on Earth,” Duffy, who also serves as the US Secretary of Transportation, assured the reality TV star.
But Loeb, other scientists and even members of Congress have been unable to access “precious data” about the object due to the government shutdown — now in its 35th day — with just weeks to go until 3I/ATLAS makes its closest fly-by to Earth.
“The dissemination of scientific information should not be held hostage to the politics of the government shutdown,” Loeb wrote in a blog post on Monday.
Analysis of high-resolution photos snapped by NASA’s HiRISE camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on Oct. 2 and 3 “would help to guide upcoming observations of 3I/ATLAS before the object leaves our solar system,” he said.
But scientists have not had the opportunity to review the images despite their pleas, he claimed. They deserve a response from the government as expeditious as Duffy answered Kardashian, Loeb said.
“We should be humble about the little we know and curious about 3I/ATLAS rather than insist that we know its nature before data is shared and analyzed,” he said. “Congress members and scientists also deserve a prompt response to their inquiries.”
US Rep. Ana Paulina Luna sent an unanswered letter to Duffy asking NASA to release the data, which has been held for over a month, on the same day Duffy responded to Kardashian.
The data he said is necessary to determine whether 3I/ATLAS is a regular comet or if it is “propelled by something other than cometary evaporation, potentially an engine.”
Loeb said there are at least 10 anomalies that have piqued scientists’ interests.
The object’s trajectory is aligned within the plane of the planets in the solar system — which has a likelihood of just 0.2%.
3I/ATLAS was also observed shedding nickel with very little iron in a way that’s only ever been seen in the industrial production of nickel alloys, he told NewsNation.
“So is it technological? Was the trajectory designed by some intelligence?” he asked.
As it reached the closest level to the sun last week, 3I/ATLAS made unusual maneuvers, flying suspiciously close to Jupiter, Venus and Mars, that led some to believe it could be an extraterrestrial spacecraft.
While on a recent episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk agreed the comet could be “aliens,” since something beyond gravity is affecting its trajectory.
Scientists said in a recent paper that the object’s non-gravitational acceleration — which was recorded by NASA — coupled with the fact that it glowed “bluer than the sun” could indicate the “technological signature of an internal engine.”
Unlike typical comets, 3I/ATLAS has a high nickel-iron ratio and most of the gas surrounding it is believed to be carbon dioxide, according to Loeb.
Confirming the existence of a large debris cloud would “unravel its nature and composition through upcoming observations” before it comes closest to Earth on Dec. 19.
“The absence of such a cloud would suggest that the non-gravitational 3I/ATLAS was propelled by something other than cometary evaporation, potentially an engine,” he said.
