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An alien object in our solar system?/ NASA probe begins investigation into mysterious giant that moves "programmed"
2025-08-06 11:20:39 / MISTERE&KURIOZITETE
What mystery does this enigmatic giant really hide?
The interstellar object 3I/ATLAS, which was first discovered on July 1, 2025 from Chile, is traveling at incredible speed through our solar system.
To find out more about its origin and destination, this object could soon be captured by a NASA probe. A member of the US Congress is already working on this.
As BILD reports, renowned Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb considers the object extraordinary.
According to an analysis by him and two colleagues, the enigmatic giant with a diameter of up to 20 kilometers not only has an extreme speed of around 68 km per second, but its trajectory also seems to be "deliberately programmed, as if it was consciously chosen," Loeb tells BILD: "The object moves almost exactly in the plane of the planets of our solar system - with only a deviation of five degrees - which has a probability of only 0.2 percent!"
The closest point to the Sun will be reached on October 29, when the Earth will be on the other side of the system. For Loeb, this is the ideal moment for what is called the Oberth maneuver: "Space probes use the Sun's gravity to accelerate or slow down their movement."
And if 31/ATLAS doesn't bounce back after its close pass by the Sun? Loeb warns: "Then humanity will panic!"
A study co-authored by Loeb shows that NASA's Juno probe, which is currently orbiting Jupiter, could approach the 3I/ATLAS object in March 2026 - at a relatively close distance of about 54 million kilometers.
The condition for this would be to carry out a maneuver as early as September 2025. Loeb and his colleagues consider it possible that Juno could obtain images, spectroscopic data or magnetic field measurements.
Loeb told the magazine "Grenzwissenschaft-Aktuell": "A close-up photo or a measurement of the magnetic field could tell us whether 3I/ATLAS is natural – or something else."
According to calculations, 3I/ATLAS may have been in the outer reaches of our system for about 8,000 years – roughly as long as humans have been recording written history.
Even if it is just a comet, this "mysterious giant" remains dangerous: in the event of a collision with Earth, its impact, according to experts, would be comparable to the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
That's why US lawmaker Anna Paulina Luna has now stepped in. In an official letter to NASA Deputy Administrator Sean Duffy, she requested the Juno mission be changed to study the 3I/ATLAS object.
"We must seize this opportunity for a revolutionary discovery," the lawmaker said.
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