The possible alien spaceship/comet known as 3I/ATLAS could have one more rather extraordinary anomaly up its sleeve - and it could prove the extraterrestrial theory. Theoretical physicist Avi Loeb has been leading speculation that the so-called 3I/ATLAS comet is actually a "spaceship".
His suggestion that humanity is not alone in the universe caused such a stir that NASA held a press conference to address the rumours. It came after the US space agency boffins shut down the speculation calling 3I/ATLAS a "comet" . . . despite claims aliens could contact earth by 2030.
And seemingly doubling-down once again, he has made another claim regarding the comet's current journey towards Earth - which could finally prove once and for all that it is an alien spaceship (or just a comet . . . ).
He wrote, in his latest blog on the space rock: "Since 3I/ATLAS was hidden by the Sun from terrestrial telescopes during its perihelion passage (time when it's closest to the sun) - when it gained most of its non-gravitational acceleration, we might only have a tight constraint on the integrated drift of 3I/ATLAS from its gravitational path but not on its radial dependence close to perihelion.
"If the rare coincidence between the perijove distance (minimum distance between an orbiting body and the planet Jupiter) of 3I/ATLAS and the Hill radius will materialize, it might flag a technological signature.
"In that case, 3I/ATLAS could release technological devices as artificial satellites of Jupiter, potentially at Jupiter's Lagrange points L1 and L2 on the Hill sphere - where orbital corrections and fuel requirements are minimal.
"Within the diameter of Jupiter's orbit around the Sun, the coincidence between the perijove distance and the Hill radius has a statistical likelihood smaller than 0.00004. In case the non-gravitational acceleration was needed to achieve this match, the rare coincidence will constitute the most remarkable anomaly of 3I/ATLAS so far."
For the unaware, the "Hill radius" is a critical concept in astronomy that defines the region of space around a secondary celestial body, like a planet, where its own gravity dominates the gravitational influence of a more massive primary body, typically the Sun . . . apparently.
In short, would could finally find out in March what's going on, and that is something that Avi Loeb added could "not to be settled by the authority of NASA officials in press conferences".
And as the Daily Star always says, the truth is, well . . . somewhere.