The SETI Institute has announced that their extensive radio scans of the interstellar comet 3I/Atlas have found no evidence of alien technology. This comet, which was discovered last summer, is the third known object from another star system to enter our solar system, and it has been confirmed to be of natural origin.

Comet Observations

NASA spacecraft observed the comet as it passed within 19 million miles of Mars last October, and its closest approach to Earth was in December, at a distance of 167 million miles. The SETI Institute conducted over seven hours of radio observations in July, shortly after the comet’s discovery, analyzing nearly 74 million narrow-band radio signals.

After filtering out human interference and signals matching the comet’s movement, only a little over 200 signals remained, all traced back to Earth-based technology or satellites. These findings were published in the Astronomical Journal, highlighting the capabilities of current technology to detect potential extraterrestrial signals.

Future Implications

SETI’s Sofia Sheikh and her team noted that NASA’s Voyager spacecraft, launched in the 1970s, will eventually become interstellar objects in other star systems, serving as a proof of concept for the existence of interstellar technological objects. The comet, currently almost 1 billion miles away as it returns to interstellar space, is estimated to be between 1,444 feet and 3.5 miles in size and could be as old as 11 billion years, twice the age of our sun.

Valeria Garcia Lopez of Furman University emphasized the importance of continuing the search for technosignatures, even from objects not expected to have signals, as the technology we have today makes such detections realistic.

Original reporting: NBC6 Miami — read the source article.