A Harvard scientist tracking the interstellar visitor in our solar system has issued a warning about its move behind the sun on Tuesday.
The object, dubbed 3I/ATLAS, will be exactly on the opposite side of the sun relative to Earth, constituting a so-called `solar-conjunction,' tomorrow, which Avi Loeb said would be 'an opportune time for technological action.'
Loeb explained that in space travel, the best time to speed up or slow down a spacecraft is when it's closest to a large object, since firing the engine at that point, known as the Oberth effect, gives the biggest change in speed.
'If 3I/ATLAS is a massive mothership, it will likely continue along its original gravitational path and ultimately exit the Solar system,' the professor shared in a Sunday blog post.
'In that case, the Oberth maneuver might apply to the mini-probes it releases at perihelion towards Solar system planets.'
3I/ATLAS will reach its best window for such Oberth maneuvers just eight days after it slips behind the sun, which will put it the closest to the sun at about 126 million miles away, he added.
While Loeb has floated the idea that 3I/ATLAS could be of extraterrestrial origin, NASA has long maintained that the object is simply a comet from a distant galaxy.
'As of now, 3I/ATLAS appears most likely to be a natural comet,' Loeb shared on hist Medium post.
'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.'
The professor added that he has identified several anomalies that have suggested the object could be of alien origin.
The trajectory of 3I/ATLAS is aligned within five degrees of the ecliptic plane, which is the same plane in which the planets orbit the sun, he shared.
Unlike typical comets, it displayed a sunward jet, or anti-tail, that is not a mere optical illusion caused by viewing angle.
This stream of gas and dust is unusual because comet tails are typically pushed away from the sun by solar radiation and wind.
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope observed a similar phenomenon, capturing an extended glow aimed sunward in late July.
Loeb explained that the glow stretched roughly ten times longer than it was wide, forming what he described as the geometry of a jet directed at the sun, a pattern unlike any known comet.