Interstellar Visitor Sparks Fire Storm as NASA's Reveal Triggers Explosive Cover Up Claims
NASA's big reveal of the mysterious interstellar object has been slammed as a joke, with many claiming the space agency is covering up what they really know. The newest images of the visitor, known as 3I/ATLAS, were released by the space agency on Wednesday. However, the pictures, taken on a rather sophisticated camera on Mars, were largely blurry and showed only a distant dot. Moreover, NASA refuted any claims that the object, which had made unexpected maneuvers that dumbfounded experts, is anything other than a large space rock. The agency's associate administrator Amit Kshatriya declared at a press conference on YouTube: '3I/ATLAS is a comet.'
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Blurry Images and Bold Denials NASA Defends Its Interstellar Visitor
Social media went into a frenzy, with many alleging the space agency was hiding what they actually knew and was withholding clearer images. 'What a waste of time! NASA is lying so bad. They are all so scripted. The gaslighting is off the charts,' one person posted on X. 'You have lost all credibility with this blurry hogwash photo. Anyone over there who cares about Earth should dump the entire unedited image archive to Wikileaks,' another social media user wrote. NASA's HiRISE camera was supposed to provide a detailed image of the interstellar object near Mars, but the photo shown on Wednesday was blurry and vague. Other images revealed by NASA showed 3I/ATLAS from great distances which made the object look like a dot among the stars. NASA's HiRISE camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter was expected to provide one of the best images of 3I/ATLAS to date, since it was able to view the object from just 30.6 million kilometers away. However, the image shown on Wednesday was a fuzzy, black-and-white picture that did not have any definition. In fact, the clearest and most detailed image presented by NASA did not actually show the interstellar object. Instead, it showed a color image of the chemical elements being released into space by 3I/ATLAS. 'It was a foggy London day when the NASA Mars orbiter took this photo haha,' one person joked on social media. The space agency also pushed back on claims that 3I/ATLAS was displaying any behaviors that were unnatural for a typical comet.
Avi Loeb and the Debate Over Extraordinary Possibilities
Previously, Harvard professor Avi Loeb had already discovered at least 11 anomalies that scientists have yet to fully explain, including a cometary tail pointing in the wrong direction, the object turning blue near the sun, and course changes that defy gravity. However, the NASA team dismissed any irregularities being recorded as a byproduct of the object coming from a distant solar system likely composed of a completely different chemical makeup than our own. Nicky Fox, who works for NASA's science mission directorate, added: 'We certainly haven't seen any technosignatures [technological traces of intelligent life] or anything from it that would lead us to believe it was anything other than a comet.' The only detailed image revealed by NASA did not include 3I/ATLAS, and only showed a trail of chemicals the object was supposedly emitting. NASA maintained that 3I/ATLAS was a comet with no signs of extraterrestrial life 'It's gonna look different because it didn't come from our solar system,' Fox added. The quick dismissal of the alternative possibilities surrounding 3I/ATLAS only fueled the speculation online that NASA was trying to bury the subject of alien life. 'This is s***. Tell the truth once and for all to all mankind!!' one frustrated viewer posted. 'Seems like they are trying really hard to convince us that it's just a rock,' another person said. When Fox was directly asked whether NASA scientists had investigated the possibility that 3I/ATLAS could be an alien craft, the associate administrator avoided giving a clear answer to the question. 'We love all of the different science and all of the different hypotheses into what these things can be,' Fox replied. 'NASA= NEVER A STRAIGHT ANSWER,' an X user posted during the press event. 'I should be mad about the NASA event being an absolute flop but I actually just can't stop laughing,' another viewer wrote. Images of 3I/ATLAS taken by the Nordic Optical Telescope in Spain on November 11 showed the alleged comet has not broken apart as expected Color-enhanced images shared by multiple social media users revealed 3I/ATLAS developed a strange green glow as it neared Mars and the sun last month
Loeb and the Dissenting View: The World-Changing Potential of an Interstellar Visitor
Since its discovery in July, the majority of scientists and astronomers have agreed with NASA's assessment, calling 3I/ATLAS a normal comet with a slightly different chemical arrangement than space rock which formed in this solar system. Loeb, a physicist and head of the Galileo Project, a scientific research group looking for signs of extraterrestrial life, has been the most prominent voice disputing the comet theory. He contended that those in the scientific community who have dismissed the more extraordinary possibilities are more concerned with being right and avoiding criticism than alerting the public to a potentially world-changing event. 'Here we are talking about a potential for something that could affect humanity in the future in a dramatic way, and so you shouldn't apply the same approach of being as conservative as possible,' Loeb told the Daily Mail in October. 'I don't want to be their therapist, but they're trying to obviously protect their reputation, not take risks, and also pretend that they know the answer in advance.'
