Interstellar visitor proves Einstein's theory before making an unexplained shift in its path

The interstellar object that continues to baffle scientists has just confirmed one of Albert Einstein's theories, more than a century after it was proposed.

Scans of 3I/ATLAS as it reached its closest point to the sun have found that our home star's gravity bent the light coming from the mysterious object, just as Einstein predicted in 1915 in his theory of general relativity.

This effect, known as gravitational lensing, was caused by a slight shift in the object's apparent position in the sky, which scientists had predicted last month would be approximately 0.27 arcseconds —a remarkably small displacement that can only be observed with powerful telescopes.

However, 3I/ATLAS showed even more of a shift than scientists could have imagined, straying four arcseconds from its expected path past the sun.

One arcsecond is equal to 1/3600 of a degree, or like viewing a dime from 2.5 miles away.

While the mystery object, which many scientists have dismissed as a comet, may have proven Einstein's theory about gravity bending light, its new unexplained location in the sky adds to the possibility that 3I/ATLAS is no ordinary space rock.

Harvard physicist Avi Loeb revealed that the supposed comet would have needed to release a huge amount of its mass in the form of a powerful gas jet to push 3I/ATLAS to its current location in our solar system.

If it's really a comet, this would have left behind a massive cloud of gas and dust, but if it didn't, then the claims of 3I/ATLAS being an artificial spacecraft will be one step closer to being proven true.

Loeb explained that for scientists to be right about 3I/ATLAS being a comet, the sun would have needed to melt away roughly 15 percent of the object's mass.

That's about five billion tons worth of gas pouring out of 3I/ATLAS as it reached perihelion, its closest point to the sun, on October 29.

The cloud of dust this outpouring would have created would be visible by telescopes as the object nears its closest point to Earth on December 19.

However, if there is no giant dust cloud for astronomers to see, Loeb called it the tenth clue that 3I/ATLAS was constructed by extraterrestrials and sent to this solar system for an unknown purpose.

The latest hint that there was something unusual about the interstellar visitor came as the object reached its perihelion with the sun and suddenly pulled away and changed color.

'Observations of 3I/ATLAS close to perihelion by the solar observatories STEREO, SOHO and GOES-19, revealed unprecedented brightening and a color bluer than the sun,' Loeb wrote in a paper released Sunday.

This discovery was incredibly strange because comets turn red as their cold surfaces absorb blue light and bounce back mostly red light, just like a cold piece of metal glows red when you start heating it.

Meanwhile, this 'non-gravitational acceleration' 3I/ATLAS experienced could not be explained by gravity, so something else appeared to be speeding it up and nudging it off its expected path, which could be a sign the object has its own engine.

Loeb also broke down the odds of the other strange clues surrounding the interstellar visitor, including its almost perfectly flat course, which takes it within close range of three different planets in our solar system.

The professor explained that the chance of a natural object traveling along the same plane in space as the Earth and its neighboring planets was only 0.2 percent.

Meanwhile, there was only a 1-in-20,000 chance of a natural comet making close fly-bys over Mars, Venus, and Jupiter, pointing to the possibility that this path has been guided by an unknown intelligence.

Scans of 3I/ATLAS have also revealed far more nickel and much less iron than astronomers have found in all other comets before this one.

The object's nickel coating is similar to how humans use the metal as a protective layer against the extreme heat of rocket engines on Earth spacecraft.

3I/ATLAS was also seen projecting an unusual 'anti-tail' which pointed at the sun instead of trailing behind the object like a normal comet.

As scientists wait to see if the alleged comet really lost a giant portion of its mass last week, Loeb noted that 3I/ATLAS was unexplainably larger and moving faster than previous interstellar objects detected by humans.

At 33 billion tons, it's a million times larger than the mysterious Oumuamua, which passed through the solar system in 2017, and about a thousand times bigger than the comet Borisov, which passed Earth two years later.

The odds of a natural space rock from a distant solar system being that large and moving at its current speed of 151,800mph were estimated at 1-in-1,000.

Loeb also noted that 3I/ATLAS only appears to contain four percent water, unlike normal comets, which mostly consist of water ice.

It's also reflecting light in a strange way that made it get much brighter as it neared the sun, and did so approximately 7.5 times faster than normal comets.

Finally, the suspected comet has also come from the same direction as the famous 'Wow! Signal' of 1977, a still unexplained radio signal which scientists have theorized could be an alien transmission.