Earlier this week, NASA officials released long-delayed images of interstellar visitor 3I/ATLAS. One of the shots, taken by the HiRISE camera attached to the agency’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, shows the mysterious object blazing past the Red Planet in early October. “Could this be a technological signature of illuminating or clearing the path from any hazardous micrometeorites that may cause damage to a technological object?” he pondered of the counterintuitive plume. “These details will inform us without a doubt whether the jets are produced by natural pockets of ice that are warmed by sunlight or by technological thrusters,” Loeb wrote. More on 3I/ATLAS: Professor Rages at NASA’s “Deceptive” Press Conference on Mysterious Interstellar Object