NASA spacecraft goes dark following close encounter with interstellar visitor
There's concern for a NASA orbiter after it lost contact following a close encounter with the mysterious 3I/ATLAS object.
While the agency is adamant that 3I/ATLAS is nothing more than a comet hurtling in from outside our solar system, conspiracy theorists think it's everything from an alien mothership to a deadly probe scoping out planets to conquer.
Ever since the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) station first spotted 3I/ATLAS on July 1, the space community has been obsessed with tracking the biggest object to ever have been clocked coming into our solar system.
Said to be between 7.6 and 14 billion years old, the chaotic comet is thought to be older than the solar system itself, which means there's plenty of hype as it approaches its closest pass to Earth
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on December 19.
After appearing to change direction to intercept Earth, 3I/ATLAS had a recent brush with Mars.
Doing nothing to dispel the wild theories from the likes of Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb, the record-breaking object seems to have an adverse effect on Mars' MAVEN probe.
Launched in November 2013, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution orbiter swirls around the planet to study the loss of atmospheric gases to space and gives invaluable insight into Mars' history in terms of climate and water.
Although initially planned for a two-year mission, MAVEN has been relaying information to NASA for the past 12 years before suddenly going dark on December 6.
NASA confirmed that the probe moved behind Mars while tracking 3I/ATLAS, but then mysteriously stopped transmitting and started rotating in an 'unusual' manner as it came back into Earth's view. More than this, it appears that its trajectory was somehow changed.
Could this be because 3I/ATLAS is actually an 'alien probe' that isn't ready to be revealed to the world yet?
There's probably a much more logical reason, with NASA saying that reconnection efforts are now underway.
The post continued: "NASA is also working to mitigate the effect of the MAVEN anomaly on surface operations for NASA’s Perseverance and Curiosity rovers. Four orbiters at Mars, including MAVEN, relay communications to and from the surface to support rover operations."
Surface operations have been adjusted accordingly, and if NASA manages to get MAVEN back up and running, more about the situation is sure to become clear.
Responding on social media, one person said: "There’s something going on with this thing. I don’t wear tin foil hats either."
Another added: "3I/Atlas will pass its closest point to Earth in a few days. If NASA can’t get one decent image of it at that point then they all need to resign."
A third said: "They are coming guys, get ready."
At a time when tinfoil hat-wearing conspiracists are looking for any justification that 3I/ATLAS is more than just a harmless celestial body made of ice, dust, and rock, the fact that it's just knocked out a sophisticated piece of NASA kit that's been doing fine for the past 12 years is sure to raise a few eyebrows.