Joe Yates
Elon Musk has touched on the interstellar object hurtling through our solar system - which one Harvard astrophysicist speculated could be a probe sent by aliens to recon Earth.
The Manhattan-sized interstellar comet, known as Comet 3I/ATLAS, was first spotted back in July and has been acting unlike anything scientists have ever seen before.
While appearing as a guest on The Joe Rogan Experience, the Tesla CEO had a pretty bizarre reaction to being asked about whether he has been keeping up to date with the comet.
"I mean, one thing I can say is like, look, if I was aware of any evidence of aliens - Joe, you have my word - I will come on your show and I would reveal it on the show," the SpaceX boss said.
Advert
Before wildly stating that he would never take his own life - in reference to the absurd conspiracy theory that mankind has made contact with aliens before, but that it's been kept under wraps.
He continued: "I'm never committing suicide, to be clear. So, on camera, guys, I am never committing suicide ever!"
Host Joe Rogan continued by describing the comet as 'fascinating' due to the presence of nickel in its gas cloud.
"The only way that exists, uh, here is, uh, industrial alloys apparently," the UFC commentator added.
Musk interjected: "There are there are definitely comets and asteroids that are made primarily of nickel.
"So the places where you mine nickel on Earth are actually where there was an asteroid or comet that hit earth - that was a nickel-rich meteorite."
He explained that after the collision, they left a nickel-rich deposit.
"Those are from impacts - you definitely didn't want to be there at the time because anything would have been obliterated. But that's where the sources of nickel and cobalt are these days," Musk highlighted.
Rogan, reading a quote by Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb, went on: "It's mostly nickel - very little iron, which he was saying on earth only exists in alloys."
Musk added: "It would be a very sort of heavy spaceship if you made it all out of nickel. Yeah, that's a heavy spaceship.
"It would like obliterate a continent type of thing - maybe worse."
As for what Loeb initially said about the interstellar visitor, he boldly claimed to the New York Post: "It could indicate that it was an alien probe sent to do recon on Earth."