The Manhattan-sized interstellar object 3I/ATLAS is now turning green as it rockets closer to the Sun — with experts stating it appears something “switched on” to inspire the “anomalous evolution.”
Scientists from the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile reported a dramatic rise in Cyanide and Nickel outgassing, which has changed the mysterious object’s color from red to green over the last two weeks, according to a recent report.
These increases are “super-linear” and have a rate-limit that is not determined by “the availability of photons, nor a linear response to temperature increase,” according to the paper.
The sharp increase “may instead likely be temperature-activated and/or threshold process that is being switched on.”
“What they mean is that there is a process with some minimum temperature in order for it to get activated,” Harvard astrophysicist and 3I/ATLAS tracker Avi Loeb told The Post.
“Imagine that you want to buy a ticket to see a show. As long as you have a small amount of money in your pocket, you will not get in, but once you have more than some minimum, you will be able to see the show,” the good doctor explained.
“The more money you have the better your seating might be, but getting into the theater requires you to cross a minimum payment. This is the threshold effect they are referring to.”
“The ATLAS team interprets this anomalous evolution as a shift from scattering of sunlight by dust lifted from a reddened surface to the production of small, politically bright icy grains, which changed the opacity of the plume of materials shed off 3I/ATLAS,” Loeb wrote in a blog post on Tuesday.
Earlier observations of the object showed no cometary tail, despite being labeled a comet by expert scientists.
The mysterious object also appears to be emitting its own light, according to observations.
Further, it shows an extension of scattered light towards the Sun and not away from it, which is typical for comets.
3I/ATLAS is also the first interstellar object to take a path through the inner solar system, passing several planets at close enough distance to make observations — a path with a likelihood of .02%, according to Dr. Loeb.