Interstellar object: Avi Loeb reacts to 3I/Atlas and Nasa's reveal

There's a puzzling object which is flying through our solar system right now. It's only the third object ever identified to enter our solar system from another galaxy. It was discovered on July 1st of this year, but there is still so much we really don't know about it. Joining me now is Avi Lo, a theoretical physicist and also a Harvard University science professor of science. Avi, thank you for being here with us and I want you to tell us and also put it in perspective here. First, where is theory Atlas from? And also, where is it now? And how rare of an object is this to be in our solar system? >> Thanks for having me. The object is only the third that we spotted coming from outside the solar system over the past decade because we didn't have survey telescopes that are capable of finding such objects. But it's the third one and the most unusual one in sense of uh its size. It's the size of a big city like Boston and a million times more massive than the first interstellar object. And we don't know where it came from. We just know its speed when it entered the solar system, which was about 60 kilometers per second. And we don't know how long the journey was, but it came closest to the sun on October 29th. And then now we can see it from Earth. It was on the opposite side of the sun. we couldn't see during the month of October. And it will get closest to Earth on December 19th, about a week before the holidays. And um the fundamental question is, is it a natural object, a rock covered with pockets of ice that get evaporated by sunlight or maybe a technological object sent by another civilization? >> So, you know, NASA released those new pictures. We just had them up momentarily ago. They just released them this week, but they didn't really address a lot of the puzzling questions that you have brought brought up in the past. What would you like to hear from NASA and why? >> Right. So, there are some surprises about this object. It came along the plane of the planets around the sun as if it is on a reconnaissance mission and that's why it's so easy to observe it from months. The NASA should be grateful if this is just a an icy rock. We were extremely fortunate that you know the chance of that happening is one in 500 for it to lie in that plane and moreover um you know it also has jets coming from it in all directions not just in the direction of the sun we don't know exactly how they are produced we want to understand that in the coming weeks and it shed also nickel with very little iron and that's quite unusual the only place we find it is in industrial production of nickel alloys and it also has a a glow that is ahead of it and that was visible in the high-rise image from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter that was released by NASA and it's just not clear why is there a globe preceding it in the direction of motion not in the direction of the sun and uh so there are lots of mysteries and that's what makes science fun because we can figure out the answers by collecting more evidence >> more evidence that's for sure and those are some of the anomalies that you wrote wrote about in the past. I mean, from the jets, uh, from the tail, too. You're saying it's not really normal for an actual comet to do that. I also want to go back to the pictures though because it has gained the attention of so many amateur astronomers who have used their own cameras to capture high quality images. NASA though releasing these pictures, you got to be honest, you look at it, it's pretty blurry. Is this acceptable? Were you expecting such blurry images to be made and released by NASA? Yeah, the cameras that NASA used for those images are not optimized to observe this particular object. Uh the best image was obtained by the Hubble Space Telescope and we expect to get better images in December. Uh there are bigger telescopes on the ground and actually amateur astronomers in recent days got much better you know with with equipment that cost thousands of dollars. They got much better data or images than NASA obtained with a billion dollar equipment. So I think we should expect in the coming weeks to learn much more about this object. And uh stay tuned. Hopefully it will not send any unwanted gifts for the holidays. >> Yeah. And you mentioned too it could be you're theorizing it could just be a comet or it could be something else. What is that something else that you have referenced? The something else is an object that was designed to target the the inner solar system and uh could be a mother ship that releases probes to the planets. So we should check out if there are any objects coming out of it in the direction of Earth or the or Mars. We have orbiters around Mars that can monitor for any new objects that appear there. uh and we can check for any radio transmission or any excess heat that is coming from an engine or any maneuver that the object makes. All of these are technological signatures and we have enough uh instruments looking at it that we can figure it out if it turns out to have any of these technological signatures. And we should always remember the story about the city of Troy that accepted without any hesitation a Trojan horse that looked completely innocent. So my point is when you have a visitor to your backyard. Uh you better get as much data on it as possible because it might show up at your front door. >> I mean you know it's a little taboo in a in a sense. I'm sure some people are watching this smiling in a way or grinning. It's a little taboo to even consider that. But it is interesting that you bring it up saying it could be a comet or it could be something else because as you said you want to know who's in your backyard, right? Do you think though that NASA is willing to look at it from that perspective or just write it off and say this is a comet? Well, you know, it doesn't really matter what NASA thinks or does because there are hundreds of telescopes around the globe that will be looking at it. And we are not in the days of Galileo Galile when the Vatican or the church could tell the public don't listen to to one guy that says that the earth is not at the center of the universe. Nowadays, it's impossible to block the flow of information. And [snorts] my hope is we will figure it out one way or another. And science cannot be administered by bureaucrats. You see, the the the beauty of science is that evidence prevails. >> Evidence prevails. All right, Avi Lo, thank you so much. We understand it will be flying closest to Earth on December 19th. Uh and of course, we're all going to be checking in on this and hopefully we'll have you back on. So informative. We really do appreciate it. Thank you very much.