{"id":13350,"date":"2025-09-11T01:34:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T01:34:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/13350\/"},"modified":"2025-09-11T01:34:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T01:34:07","slug":"mysterious-interstellar-object-is-changing-trajectory-in-unexplained-ways-as-it-approaches-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/13350\/","title":{"rendered":"Mysterious interstellar object is changing trajectory in unexplained ways as it approaches Earth"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mysterious interstellar object is changing trajectory in unexplained ways as it approaches Earth <\/p>\n

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mystery<\/p>\n

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Express newspaper
\n 10\/09\/2025 22:45<\/p>\n

The latest image of the mysterious interstellar object speeding through our Solar System has revealed that it is changing shape and color.<\/p>\n

A team of Austrian astronomers captured the object, known as 3I\/ATLAS, on September 7, finding that its once reddish glow has recently turned green.<\/p>\n

Scientists said these changes are unusual and not fully explained by current models of comets.<\/p>\n

“During the total lunar eclipse, we captured a detailed image of Comet 3I\/ATLAS from the dark skies of Namibia,” said astronomer Michael J\u00e4ger.<\/p>\n

“By combining several exposures in blue, green and red light, we were able to clearly see the comet’s gas-rich coma.”<\/p>\n

Data released this week by the ATLAS telescope team also showed that the cloud of light around 3I\/ATLAS grew faster when the object was far from the Sun and slowed down as it approached.<\/p>\n

The team suggested that this happened because the object switched from scattering sunlight onto the red dust on its surface, to releasing small, bright, icy particles, which made the surrounding dust more reflective.<\/p>\n

3I\/ATLAS is expected to make its closest approach to Earth on December 19, 2025, at a distance of 168 million miles \u2013 the same distance between our planet and Mars.<\/p>\n

Harvard physicist Avi Loeb shared the Austrian team’s developments in his latest blog post, suggesting that the transformation from red to green-blue was the result of a strong increase in cyanide (CN) production, as reported by the Very Large Telescope on August 25, which found 3I\/ATLAS is emitting CN at 20 grams per second.<\/p>\n

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As 3I\/ATLAS approached the Sun, it released much more cyanide and nickel (without any trace of iron), with the amount increasing at a remarkable rate, following a pattern roughly proportional to the ninth power of the distance from the Sun, Loeb explained.<\/p>\n

The physicist has suggested that 3I\/ATLAS could be an alien probe, citing its enormous size, extreme brightness and lack of a tail.<\/p>\n

However, the Austrian astronomers noted that the coma was clearly visible in their data.<\/p>\n

“The tail documented by the Hubble telescope barely grew and only became slightly brighter,” J\u00e4ger told the Daily Mail.<\/p>\n

“In early September, the object reached the point where gas-rich comets begin to become active. On August 28, we saw the tail becoming brighter. A few days later, we saw the beginnings of the development of a gas coma in images taken with the blue filter.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most detailed images taken during the total lunar eclipse on September 7 already show a blue-green coma and a tail. All of this can be explained by the development of a comet. The object has been traveling in the depths of space for billions of years, has been bombarded by radiation and has formed a thick layer, which is only now being broken up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unlike the first interstellar object, 1I\/\u02bbOumuamua, which showed no signs of gas or dust, and the second, 2I\/Borisov, which behaved like a typical comet, 3I\/ATLAS exhibits unique features, including an anti-tail, extreme color changes, and a giant coma.<\/p>\n

While the Austrian team has dismissed Loeb’s theory, the physicist said he is only considering current data.<\/p>\n

Loeb recently mentioned the findings of the Very Large Telescope, highlighting how it detected an unusual nickel cloud from the object.<\/p>\n

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Unlike natural comets, which always release nickel along with iron, 3I\/ATLAS shows the metallic element without any trace of iron.<\/p>\n

Loeb explained that this nickel signature is a typical sign of industrial production of nickel alloys.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs this anomaly further evidence for a possible technological origin of 3I\/ATLAS?\u201d Loeb wrote on the blog.<\/p>\n

“The study suggests that chemical formation occurs through the carbonyl-nickel channel, a process extremely rare in comets but a standard technique in industrial nickel refining,” he added.<\/p>\n

The new study, published by astrophysicists in Chile in late August, found that 3I\/ATLAS is releasing nickel at about five grams per second and cyanide at 20 grams per second, with both increasing significantly as the object approaches the Sun.<\/p>\n

The researchers noted that the mechanisms driving these emissions are not typical of natural cometary processes.<\/p>\n

They hypothesized that nickel could be released from the dust through gentle processes, such as sunlight, which vaporizes or breaks down small nickel-containing compounds. \/GazetaExpress\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mysterious interstellar object is changing trajectory in unexplained ways as it approaches Earth mystery Express newspaper 10\/09\/2025 22:45…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13351,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[61,60,82,247],"class_list":["post-13350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13350\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}