3I/Atlas: China’s Mars orbiter Tianwen-1 snaps image of mysterious interstellar visitor

China’s Mars orbiter Tianwen-1 has captured a rare snapshot of a mysterious interstellar visitor that has ignited debate among scientists about its origins. The object – designated 3I/Atlas – is only the third ever detected entering our solar system, and new images, released on Thursday by the China National Space Administration (CNSA), offer a closer look at the presumed comet. Tianwen-1 snapped the pictures from about 30 million km (18.6 million miles) away on October 3. The object, which was first spotted on July 1 by the Nasa-funded Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System survey telescope in Rio Hurtado, Chile, has perplexed scientists over whether it is of natural origins or an alien spacecraft. Nasa determined it to be interstellar – from outside our solar system – based on its hyperbolic orbit, which does not follow a closed path around the sun. Tianwen-1 captured the images using its high-resolution camera, making it one of the closest observations of the interstellar object. The CNSA said that the optical payload carried by the Tianwen-1 orbiter was designed to photograph the bright surface of Mars, and this was its first attempt at photographing a distant object that is 10,000 to 100,000 times dimmer than targets on the Martian surface. “The images clearly show the distinctive features of a comet, consisting of a nucleus and a surrounding coma, with a diameter reaching several thousand kilometres,” the CNSA said. The coma is a fuzzy cloud of gas and dust around a comet’s nucleus. Nasa’s Hubble Space Telescope has also captured the teardrop-shaped cocoon of dust coming off the object’s solid, icy nucleus. The characteristics have suggested that the object is likely a comet rather than an asteroid. Observations have suggested that the object’s nucleus could be up to 5.6km (3.5 miles) in diameter, though Nasa said it could be as small as 440 metres (1,444 feet) across. When it was discovered, the object was travelling at about 221,000km/h (137,323mph). In July, a paper published on arXiv – an open-access repository for science articles that have not yet undergone formal peer review – said that 3I/Atlas “displayed various anomalous characteristics”. The paper has since been published in the peer-reviewed International Journal of Aerodynamic Control & Aviation Mechanics. The paper was written by Avi Loeb, a professor at Harvard University’s astronomy department and head of the university’s Galileo Project – which searches for evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence – along with members of the UK-based Initiative for Interstellar Studies. In the paper, the authors explore a hypothesis that the object with an “unusual” trajectory could be “technological, and possibly hostile”, adding that it could potentially visit our planet by the end of this year. “The consequences, should the hypothesis turn out to be correct, could potentially be dire for humanity, and would possibly require defensive measures to be undertaken,” the team wrote, adding that these efforts might prove futile. The team noted that the paper was “largely a pedagogical exercise”, and that the most likely outcome was that the visitor was a natural interstellar object. Tom Statler, Nasa’s lead scientist for solar system small bodies, rejected the hypothesis that the object had alien origins and said it resembled other known comets. “It has some interesting properties that are a little bit different from our solar system comets, but it behaves like a comet. And so the evidence is overwhelmingly pointing to this object being a natural body. It’s a comet,” Statler told The Guardian on September 11. Astronomers say that 3I/Atlas likely formed in another star system in the centre of the Milky Way before it was ejected into interstellar space. The CNSA said on Thursday that the object’s age could range from 3 to 11 billion years, which could make it older than our solar system. The Tianwen-1 team began to prepare to study the presumed comet in early September and had to overcome issues such as the vast distance as well as the speed of 3I/Atlas, which made it appear dim from the orbit of Mars and difficult to capture. The images and a resulting animation received and processed by ground staff would be used for in-depth studies on the object’s trajectory and other features, the administration said. Tianwen-1 is China’s first Mars exploration mission, which launched in July 2020. It consists of an orbiter, several cameras, a lander and the Zhurong rover – which touched down on Mars in May, making China the second country to successfully operate a rover on the red planet after the United States. In May, China launched the Tianwen-2 asteroid sample and return mission, which is expected to reach the asteroid 2016 HO3 in the summer of 2026, where it will collect surface samples before sending them back to Earth using a re-entry capsule.

3I/Atlas: China’s Mars orbiter Tianwen-1 snaps image of mysterious interstellar visitor

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Spacecraft overcomes cosmic challenges to photograph curious object hurtling through solar system amid debate it could be alien tech

Spacecraft overcomes cosmic challenges to photograph curious object hurtling through solar system amid debate it could be alien tech