The Israeli-American academic told the New York Post the unusual route of the “comet” could be utilized to “seed” probes into the gas planet’s orbit. The aliens might have been drawn to Jupiter due to it being the largest in our solar system.
The “alien spaceship” will be 53.445 million kilometers (over 33.209 million miles) from Jupiter shortly before St Patrick’s Day next year, based on NASA projections. 3I/ATLAS will be within Jupiter’s Hill Radius – the zone where the gas planet’s gravitational pull exceeds that of the Sun, reports the Daily Star.
Objects require minimal fuel to stay stable in this zone, making it an ideal spot to release “satellites”. Prof Loeb described it as an “extraordinary coincidence” that 31/ATLAS was scheduled to follow this trajectory.
Previously, Prof Loeb suggested that the “multi-jet structure” will make its closest approach to Earth on December 19, potentially marking our nearest encounter with extraterrestrial life and technology.
“This multi-jet structure constitutes a remarkable target for future observations with the Hubble and Webb telescopes, as 3I/ATLAS will arrive at closest approach to Earth on December 19, 2025,” he stated according to Medium. “Its minimal distance from Earth will be 269 million kilometers, about a hundred times larger than the extent of the jet structure in today’s images.”
However, the Harvard expert also noted that the “space ship” is likely to remain hidden from us, with Earth-based satellites unable to detect what is happening with these “jets”. Dr Loeb explained: “It is therefore unlikely that particle probes on Earth-based satellites will be able to capture particles from these jets.
“The same holds for the particle detectors on NASA’s Juno spacecraft around Jupiter, which will probe 3I/ATLAS on March 16, 2026 from a distance of 53 million kilometers, an order of magnitude larger than the extent of the current jet structure.
“Similarly, ESA’s Juice spacecraft on its way to Jupiter, is currently 64 million kilometers from 3I/ATLAS and unable to intercept these jets.”