I got to thinking about this in a discussion with family and had to search for this article, eventually resting on your post, which i hadn’t read until just now.
This is supposed to wizz by in October of this year.
There is another object forcast to wizz by us on April 13th, 2029. Apophis. It is estimated 1700+ feet long and while still millions of miles away, is forecast to wizz by us a mere 19,000 away, within the orbit of our geostationary satellites (ref wiki entry). Not comforting, considering the inability to accurately forecast hurricane landfall when one is 200 miles away.
Then another thought occurred to me. How much time between these two events?...11/21/2025 to 04/13/2029?
1270 days...three and a half years
If it flys by on October 31st it will be EXACTLY 3.5 later when apophis arrives.
BTW...Apophis “the ancient Greek name for an ancient Egyptian deity called “Apep”—also spelled “Apepi” or “Aapep”—who was seen as the embodiment of chaos and the opponent of light and order in the cosmos. The deity is also associated with earthquakes, thunder, darkness, storms, death and was generally considered to be the greatest force of evil in Egyptian theology.”
So... there’s that to ponder over as we sleep
The difference between 13 Atlas and Apophis: the first is interstellar and the second local;
I3’s closest approach is as it is moving Away from Earth, while Apophis closest approach is while it is moving Toward Earth.
Unless I3 changes course [ and then all bets are off ], it will not even come as close to Earth as to Mars, Venus, and later Jupiter. Apophis, on the other hand, does stand a chance of hitting Earth, especially since its orbit may be nudged by another object hitting it, between the last observation and the crossing of Earth’s orbit.
Apophis is a local random rock, while I3 is from some other solar system om the galaxy. Objects like Apophis are to be expected, while I3 is not. I3 has so many improbabilities that simply should not occur randomly, which is why many are questioning the establishment’s label of ‘comet’.
Until it is known for certain [ something we may never know ] that it is just an interstellar comet like 2I/Borisov, don’t rule out that it could be a device made by someone else for unknown purposes.