William sent in a link to another update on Comet 31/ATLAS. It is not behaving as expected – as far as mainstream theories on the universe are concerned. At https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/alien-comet-3i-atlas-takes-a-puzzling-path-towards-jupiter/ar-AA1Rc1GN … information released by the media is raising some interesting features about Comet 31/ATLAS. Its path toward Jupiter, combined with subtle deviations in its motion, has turned a rare celestial guest into a live experiment in how gravity, sunlight, and volatile ices sculpt an object that was born around another star. William says he wants to unpack what researchers actually know about this comet, what remains unverified based on available sources, and why its journey is stirring both scientific excitement and public speculation.
The comet appears to defy the mainstream gravity model. It doesn’t exclude gravity as a major factor but the track of the comet towards Jupiter seems to show subtle deviations in its motion. However, it is already known the comet is on a hyperbolic path that is not gravitationally bound to the Sun. That is why it is thought to be an interstellar object in the first instance. At the moment, its brightness, coma structure, and dust tail all look broadly similar to comets with an origin, it is thought, on the outer edges of our solar system. What has changed, as far as astronomers are concerned, seems to be that its path through our solar system is more complicated than models had suggested. These are gravity based models in which the Sun influences the planets and other cosmic bodies within our solar system. The comet is not following a simple gravitational curve towards Jupiter. Non gravitaional forces appear to be at work.