Explained: Why controversial Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb's 3I/ATLAS 'alien theory' doesn’t add up
NASA’s small-bodies lead scientist Tom Statler disagrees flatly: “It looks like a comet. It does comet things. It very, very strongly resembles, in just about every way, the comets that we know. The evidence is overwhelmingly pointing to this object being a natural body. It’s a comet.” In other words, there’s nothing in its observable behaviour — not reflectivity, mass loss, or trajectory — that requires a non-natural explanation.
NASA’s small-bodies lead scientist Tom Statler disagrees flatly: “It looks like a comet. It does comet things. It very, very strongly resembles, in just about every way, the comets that we know. The evidence is overwhelmingly pointing to this object being a natural body. It’s a comet.” In other words, there’s nothing in its observable behaviour — not reflectivity, mass loss, or trajectory — that requires a non-natural explanation.
