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Online rumors are swirling that a comet from another solar system might be a UFO — but Michigan State University researchers say that’s pure speculation. It’s definitely a comet, they insist, with no credible reason to believe otherwise.
“Almost everybody in the field is in agreement that this object is a natural comet because it’s displaying classical evidence of cometary activity,” said Daryll Seligman, MSU professor and lead author of the first paper studying the comet.
It's behaving the way a comet does and has all of the features that define a comet, like a tail, he said.
"There's no controversy about it not being a comet because nobody thinks that except a very few people." Seligman said.
The comet, called 3I/Atlas is unique though. It's the third interstellar comet to ever be detected, and the ice in its nucleus likely isn't made of water-which is typical of most other comets, he said.
His team knows the nucleus’ ice must be made of a different element because the comet was first spotted moving from beyond where water is active, he said.
“It could be telling you there’s some weird ice which is driving the more distant activity – something like carbon dioxide. And that potentially tells you a lot about the home system the object formed in,” Seligman said.
There is nothing about the comet to suggest that it's an alien or a UFO, said Shannon Schmoll, director of the Abrams Planetarium.
"As it's coming by the Sun, it's sublimating material just like any other comet would," Schmoll said. "Everything about this points to it being a comet from somewhere else in the galaxy."
The comet will be visible with a telescope during parts of August, September, November and December.
This story was brought to you as part of a partnership between WKAR and Michigan State University’s Knight Center for Environmental Journalism