Solar Astronomy Laboratory (xras.ru)
The latest significant event in the eventful life of Comet 3I/ATLAS—its closest approach to Jupiter, the largest planet in the Solar System—will occur today at 3:20 p.m. Moscow time. According to calculations by NASA JPL, the celestial body will pass within 53.6 million kilometers of the gas giant, which is a vast distance by Earth standards, but
represents an exceptionally close (and in a sense, almost unbelievable) flyby by the standards of the Solar System.
The celestial body’s current speed exceeds 65 km/s. There is no possibility of catching up with and intercepting an object with such parameters. The only thing we can hope for is that in 100 or 200 years, if humanity has mastered sublight speeds by then, it will send a research probe in the direction where the celestial visitor will disappear, catch up to it, and definitively determine its nature. Or it might not find it at the calculated location, which in a sense would also determine the nature of the object, even more definitively.
Within the Solar System—if we consider the Oort Cloud to be its boundary—the celestial body will remain for another 10,000 years or so, although, as previously reported,
it will completely disappear from the field of view of modern tracking systems in the second half of this year.
There have been no reports from NASA regarding any attempt to obtain the latest images of 3I/ATLAS using the Juno spacecraft, which is currently operating near Jupiter. However,
the satellite’s optical instruments are not designed for this type of imaging, so the results would have been disappointing anyway and would only have fueled new suspicions of a cover-up. However, it is not out of the question that such images will eventually be taken—it is worth waiting to see.
Answers to the questions raised in connection with 3I/ATLAS’s transit past Jupiter, particularly regarding the possibility of probe deployment (within the extraterrestrial theory), will not be obtained under any scenario. It is impossible to make out anything of the sort from either Earth or Juno, so all sides will stick to their positions. Overall, there is currently an objective decline in interest in the celestial body. Therefore, as the object moves further away from Earth, it seems everything will come to an inevitable reconciliation along the lines of “we’ll never know anything anyway.” For now, let’s just wave goodbye to the comet. If, at that moment, you imagine that you’re waving to an alien probe or spacecraft flying away from Earth, that’s fine—it’s okay.