Our latest interstellar visitor has no signs of alien technology, scientists say
There were no ‘technosignatures’ from comet 3I/ATLAS, the third known object from a faraway star
The group leading the charge in the search for extraterrestrial life has given the all-clear: an interstellar comet looks to be completely natural and free of any alien tech.
The SETI Institute said Wednesday that extensive radio scans by its telescope in Northern California found no signs of otherworldly technology from our solar system’s latest interstellar visitor.
It was only the third known object from a faraway star – all deemed of natural origin – to venture into the sun’s turf.
Several Nasa spacecraft observed the celestial ice ball as it swung past Mars last October, venturing within 30 million kilometres (19 million miles) of the red planet. The closest it ever got to Earth was in December at a whopping 269 million kilometres away.
SETI said it conducted more than seven hours of observations in July soon after the comet was discovered, searching through a wide range of radio signals. The team identified nearly 74 million narrow-band radio signals.