Featured Image Credit: David Becker/Getty Images for Fontainebleau Las Vegas
Topics: Celebrity, Kim Kardashian, Nasa, Social Media, Space, Twitter, Science
Rhiannon Ingle
Topics: Celebrity, Kim Kardashian, Nasa, Social Media, Space, Twitter, Science
Kim Kardashian is clearly a jack of all trades.
The 45-year-old has built quite a reputation of putting on a number of different hats when it comes to the job front: there's been reality TV star, SKIMS fashion designer, actress, perfume and beauty product flogger and of, course, an aspiring lawyer.
However, the latest role to add to her ever growing list could be joining the research team for the comet 3I/ATLAS.
The comet has caused controversy after scientist Avi Loeb claimed it could be a 'potentially hostile' alien threat, saying among other things that the blue light seen emitting from the comet could be an alien engine.
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NASA has been adamant that it is just a comet, and the good news is that the closest it will get to Earth is 170 million miles away.
We're just a matter of weeks away until the comet makes its closest fly-by past Earth.
It all started when Kardashian tweeted: "Wait…. what’s the tea on 3I Atlas?!?!!!!!!!?????"
And it didn't take long at all for NASA’s acting administrator Sean Duffy to reply to her 'great question'.
"Great question! @NASA’s observations show that this is the third interstellar comet to pass through our solar system. No aliens. No threat to life here on Earth," he began."
Duffy continued to explain: "3 = the third. I = interstellar, meaning from beyond our solar system. ATLAS = discovered by our Asteroid Terrestrial-Impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) team."
He finished off the tweet: "We love your excitement about our Artemis mission to the Moon. You’re officially invited to launch at Kennedy Space Center!"
People have since called out Duffy, accusing him of responding to Kardashian’s questions about the interstellar object while ignoring an official inquiry from Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna.
The inquiry, per the NY Post, demanded transparency on the nature of 3I/ATLAS and asked why the agency has withheld high-resolution images and other observational data from the public - information that could confirm whether the object is a natural comet or something else entirely.
The outlet states that Luna sent an unanswered letter to Duffy asking NASA to release the data, which has been held for over a month, on the same day he responded to Kardashian.
NASA reportedly has yet to respond, prompting Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb to publicly criticise him.
"The dissemination of scientific information should not be held hostage to the politics of the government shutdown," he wrote in a blog post titled 'Kim Kardashian is Welcome to Join my Research Team on 3I/ATLAS' on Monday.
However, according to Loeb, scientists have not had the opportunity to review the images despite their pleas, and they deserve a response from the government as rapid as Duffy answered Kardashian.
"We should be humble about the little we know and curious about 3I/ATLAS rather than insist that we know its nature before data is shared and analysed," he said. "Congress members and scientists also deserve a prompt response to their inquiries."
He added: "I would love to bring Kim Kardashian up to date regarding all the anomalies we know so far about 3I/ATLAS."