A visitor from space with mood swings!

Raju Korti
For months now, this mysterious interstellar object has behaved like that one relative who changes personality depending on who is watching. First it was described as a hostile outsider armed with nuclear ambitions. Some theories even suggested it was spying on planets, making gravity defying turns and pointing its tail in the wrong direction. The object seemed determined to play the villain straight out of a sci fi potboiler.

31/Atlas: Pic representational

Cut to the latest twist. The same object is suddenly being repackaged as friendly. Harvard professor, Loeb, has floated the idea that it may be sprinkling life giving chemicals across planets it has flown close to. In Indian terms, it is as if the guest who arrived with threatening body language is now offering homemade sweets.

So, what is really going on? A couple of scientific clues have come from what the object is believed to be releasing into space. If that’s true, two substances stand out. Methanol and hydrogen cyanide. The names sound intimidating, but their behaviour is surprisingly down to earth.

Methanol is basically a simple alcohol. In space, it is found near new stars. On Earth, tiny organisms like bacteria happily treat it as food. Plants manufacture it as part of their daily life. Methanol in space can transform into sugars and amino acids, which are the basic bricks from which life is built.

Hydrogen cyanide on the other hand is the classic villain of detective novels. Deadly in high doses. Extremely useful in tiny amounts. Plants and bacteria actually produce it to defend themselves or to help seeds germinate. In chemistry, hydrogen cyanide can join other molecules to form the bases of DNA and amino acids. These are the tools that make life tick.

Now here is the curious part. Observations show that this interstellar object is releasing more than a hundred times more methanol than hydrogen cyanide. That is the highest ratio seen since only one other oddball comet in our own solar system. If chemicals had personalities, this one would be leaning heavily towards the life friendly side. The cyanide is present, but in a defensive whisper, not an attacking shout.All this naturally leads to the buzzword ‘panspermia’. The idea is simple. Comets or space rocks can carry these basic life building chemicals to planets. When they crash or even graze a planet’s atmosphere, some of these chemicals settle down and kickstart life. Think of it as cosmic courier service. Long before e commerce deliveries, the universe was perhaps sending parcels of methanol and hydrogen cyanide to young planets.

Does this make a material difference to what we know?. Not yet. Scientists still know very little about this object’s origin and purpose. Its tail pointing in the wrong direction, its colour changing to blue near the sun and its gravity defying lane-swerving behaviour remain unsolved mysteries. Some argue it is a normal comet formed under unusual conditions in a faraway system. Others wonder if it is something artificial. But until there is proof, everything remains speculation.

What does it mean for Earth? Practically nothing at the moment. The object will not come anywhere close to us. It might casually gift wrap some life friendly chemicals for planets like Mars or moons like Europa, but nothing more. If these chemicals do find their way onto such worlds, they may help us understand how life begins elsewhere. For now, Earth is safe, and all theories about danger seem to have taken a coffee break.

So we are left with a cosmic visitor that entered the solar system with a dramatic reputation. It has danced around planets, confused astronomers, and sprinkled chemicals associated with life. It has also given rise to wild theories that range from apocalypse to universal gardening. As of now, the object is not the interstellar villain it was feared to be. If anything, it behaves like a confused tourist on a long space yatra. Friendly, unpredictable and utterly mysterious.