Fastest machine ever built to be fired around the sun to chase 'UFO' comet

Is this how we get a closer look of the mysterious 3I/ATLAS comet (Picture: Getty/Metro)

Scientists want to use a solar slingshot to catch up with the interstellar visitor 3I/ATLAS,that thing that may-or-may-not have been a UFO.

In the months since 3I/ATLAS was spotted drifting into our solar system,experts clashed over whether it was a comet or of extraterrestrial origin.

One reason for this was that even at its closest to Earth in December,3I/ATLAS was still 167 million miles away,making observations tricky.

A team from the Initiative for Interstellar Studies said we could launch a 500kg probe into space that would use the sun’s gravity like a catapult to catch up with 3I/ATLAS.

But while it’s curving around our star,it would exploit the ‘Oberth effect’ to get a nifty speed boost. Rather than a literal Bart Simpson-style slingshot.

Adam Hibberd,the lead author of the paper,told Metro: ‘The “Oberth Effect” says that the faster you are moving in a gravitational field – like the Sun’s ‘ the greater the increase in energy due to any thrust your rocket engines may generate.

‘Thus,reaching low perihelion with a high speed,is ideal for exploiting the most from the Oberth Effect,as it is most effective use of the onboard propellant.’

Comet 3I/ATLAS was first spotted last July (Picture: International Gemini Observatory)

Hurling a spacecraft in this way would make it become the fastest ever,which is needed,given that 3I/ATLAS is travelling at 60km/s.

To achieve this,Hibberd said: ‘ The probe must first launch in 2035,travel to Jupiter where it can slow down – since Jupiter’s incredible mass can do this – and fall in towards the Sun.’

Emphasis on the word ‘towards’ – the craft would need to be 140,000 miles from the sun’s centre,exposing it to some serious heat.

Hibberd added: ‘Because the sun has a very strong attractive force due to its huge gravitational field – it is after all the most massive thing in our solar system – the probe accelerates and accelerates,faster and faster as it approaches the Sun.

‘By the time it reaches perihelion,so in other words,when it is at the closest point to the sun,it is travelling at 346 km/s. That speed is way faster than any spacecraft ever made,80% faster even than the fastest of all time,Parker Solar Probe,which reached 191 km/s.’

The researchers suggest the craft could be clad in a carbon-composite and aerogel,one of the lightest materials in the world.

Experts propose launching the probe in 2035,as it could reach 3I/ATLAS by 2085,when it would be 68 million miles away.

One thing holding the mission back is that even with the Oberth effect,the craft still wouldn’t be fast enough to get close to entering 3I/ATLAS’ orbit.

Dr Alfredo Carpineti,an astrophysicist who was not involved in the research,adds: ‘The work doesn’t look at the feasibility of the mission but just the manoeuvre.

‘Indeed,it’s possible to use this approach to catch up with the rocket.

‘But since the interstellar object is so much faster than the previous two,it would take decades.’

3I/ATLAS,formerly known as A11pI3Z,is only the third interstellar visitor to be discovered passing through our neck of the cosmic woods.

The first was Oumuamua,which travelled past us in 2017. In 2019, Borisov,a comet of interstellar origin,passed by.

Like Borisov,scientists believe 3I/ATLAS likely formed as a comet around another star before being flung out into the cosmos.

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