Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS far larger than scientists first thought

A comet traveling outside the solar system and heading towards the earth is much greater than scientists believed it for the first time, a scientist detailed in a new report.

Avi Loeb says that the comet could even be an artifact of extraterrestrial technology rather than a natural body because it weighs more than 33 billion tonnes and covers at least 3.1 miles in diameter.

The object, named 3i / Atlas, is only the third interstellar visitor ever detected, after Oumaumua in 2017 and 2i / Borisov in 2019.

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The astrophysicist also revealed in an average blog article that the new data and measures indicate that the core of the comet is more massive than the first estimated.

3i / Atlas was spotted in July with observations showing that the comet was losing huge amounts of carbon dioxide and dust as it heads for the sun.

Loeb and his colleagues calculated a slight “non -gravitational acceleration” in its movement caused by the “passive”, which suggests that the object must be much heavier than the first supposed models.

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The comet eclipse Oumaumua, just a quarter of a long, and Borisov, about 0.6 mile in diameter.

“This makes 3i / Atlas three to five orders of more massive magnitude than the two previous interstellar objects that we have observed,” wrote Loeb in his article.

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Next week, the comet will increase to less than 1.67 million miles from Mars orbit while approaching Jupiter and Venus.

Loeb urged NASA to turn the Hrise camera on the Mars recognition orbiter to the object and declared that even a single brilliant pixel could refine the estimates of its true dimensions.

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“We must not decide the nature of 3i / Atlas according to the chemical composition of his skin,” wrote Loeb.

“For the same reason, we must not judge a book by its cover,” he added.