Posted on 09/15/2025 12:30:49 PM PDT by Red Badger
NASA has responded to claims – popularized by Harvard professor Avi Loeb – that the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS is a spacecraft sent to the Solar System by an advanced alien civilization.
On July 1, 2025, astronomers spotted an object moving through the Solar System at nearly twice the velocity of previous interstellar visitors ‘Oumuamua and Comet Borisov. The object, which was confirmed to be an interstellar comet with its own dusty coma, is far larger than the previous two, with an estimated nucleus (the rocky part of the comet, excluding its coma) of around 5.6 kilometers (3.5 miles).
Early work showed that it is of huge interest to scientists, beyond being the third confirmed interstellar visitor. For a start, it may have come from a different region of our galaxy altogether, and may be far older than any of the known bodies in our Solar System.
So far, so interesting. But unfortunately, it appears we can't enjoy the beauty of an interstellar visitor without somebody invoking aliens. Soon after the object was discovered, and before we could take a proper look at it, Israeli-American theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and astronomer Avi Loeb suggested that it may be an interstellar probe sent by an intelligent species, potentially sent to destroy Earth.
In the first paper, which he states in a blog post is largely a "pedagogical exercise" and "fun to explore, irrespective of its likely validity", he posited that the object could be hostile, as outlined in the "Dark Forest" hypothesis. In short (though you should read the book on which it is based, you will not regret it), given the finite resources in the universe, any lifeform may want to pre-emptively attack any other form of life, before it becomes a threat to their own civilization. According to Loeb's paper, the object could be here for that purpose.
"3I/ATLAS achieves perihelion on the opposite side of the Sun relative to Earth. This could be intentional to avoid detailed observations from Earth-based telescopes when the object is brightest or when gadgets are sent to Earth from that hidden vantage point," Loeb writes on his blog.
"The optimal point for a reverse Solar Oberth maneuver to become bound to the Sun is at perihelion," he added. "It is this optimal breaking point for 3I/ATLAS that is obscured from our view by the Sun."
The paper goes on to claim that if the comet were a spacecraft, it would be able to make it to Earth using this maneuver by November or December 2025.
"The consequences, should the hypothesis turn out to be correct, could potentially be dire for humanity, and would possibly require defensive measures to be undertaken (though these might prove futile)," the paper adds, in case anybody wasn't freaking out about the comet enough.
"[If] future data will indicate the absence of a cometary tail, we will be faced with the tantalizing possibility that it did not inherit a random velocity in interstellar space but instead was sent towards the inner solar system by design," he added in another blog post, "being a member of a rare population of massive interstellar objects."
While these are all odd words to read in scientific papers, it isn't too surprising, as Loeb made similar claims about the previous two interstellar objects, suggesting 'Oumuamua may be a light sail, and is known for such outlandish speculation.
While there is plenty of online interest in Loeb's claims, there is little in the way of scientific interest. This is because, while it is certainly an interesting object, the more we look at it on approach, the more it looks like a comet.
“It looks like a comet. It does comet things. It very, very strongly resembles, in just about every way, the comets that we know,” Tom Statler, NASA’s lead scientist for Solar System small bodies, said to The Guardian about such claims.
“It has some interesting properties that are a little bit different from our solar system comets, but it behaves like a comet. And so the evidence is overwhelmingly pointing to this object being a natural body. It’s a comet.”
Scientific papers looking at the object have consistently found that it is a comet, the first we have spotted from outside our Solar System, and easily the fastest comet we have ever seen. It will be interesting to observe the object as it approaches, even though at its closest approach to the Sun, it will be out of our view. But NASA can state with quite a lot of confidence, given the observations that have taken place already, that the object is not a threat to the Earth, and is not secretly harboring alien technology to destroy us all. Thank you, NASA.
I decided to do a quick netsearch of Professor Avi Loeb and Cydonia.* He did not disappoint.
“Planets like Mars or Earth could have given multiple births to technological civilizations that were a billion years apart and hence were not aware of each other. Like stable parents, the planets recovered from the environmental impact of these civilizations over time”
He manages to combine Cydonia thinking with the Globull Climate Hoax.
*Cydonia - For those of you in Rio Linda, ‘Cydonia’ are the hilarious incantations after The Face On Mars was “discovered.” The speculators speculated that not only was The Face On Mars real; nearby formations became the Cydonia Pyramid Complex, with roads and canals.
Here is a real science/space journalist
If they come from deep space, outside of our solar system, why would aliens worry about that?
So they can sneak in and avoid the ICE and Border Patrols................
Independence Day
“Well, sir, it’s slowing down.”
“It’s what?”
“It’s, uh... It’s slowing down, sir.”
“Get me the Secretary of Defense.”
There is a very suspicious object (they call it a debris field underground)that appears to have crash landed inside a plateau at Skinwalker Ranch, UT.
Might be a relative
Bigfoot’s basement..................
Very cool...
It’s about Time !
My little green Friends...
Did you stop for a Burger?
Interstellar Intentions: If 3I/ATLAS is a probe sent to destroy Earth, it’s doing a terrible job. I mean, come on, it’s just floating around like, “Uh, guys, should I blow up the blue planet now or wait for the next galactic memo?” Talk about alien procrastination!
Cosmic Misunderstanding: Maybe 3I/ATLAS isn’t here to destroy us—it’s just a galactic tourist taking selfies with Saturn’s rings. “Hey, Zorg, check out this tiny planet with the weird bipedal creatures. Should we invade or just photobomb their space telescopes?”
Alien Invasion Fail: If this is an alien weapon, it’s the most polite invasion ever. 3I/ATLAS is basically just hovering like, “Excuse me, Earthlings, I don’t mean to interrupt your Netflix binge, but I might have to annihilate you. Is now a bad time?”
Sarcastic Space Threat: Oh great, 3I/ATLAS might be here to destroy Earth. Just what we needed—another thing to worry about in 2025. As if climate change and Wi-Fi outages weren’t enough, now we’ve got alien overlords passive-aggressively orbiting us. Thanks, universe!
It's a very large rock. It's from somewhere very far away in the very distant past and there will be lots of things about it that we have never seen before.
Now that we have become good at spotting these things, we will see quite a few more of them. There will be many surprises in how they behave and what they are composed of. Entire theories of planetary formation and stellar evolution will be upended and drastically revised. Eventually we will be setup to launch a probe that will catch one for a closeup look.
From professors and scientists will come a great wailing, the gnashing of teeth, and rending of garments. New reputations will be made and old ones discarded.
Good times.
I hadn’t thought of that possibility:)
It’s a comet“
Comet
It’ll make your teeth turn green
Comet
It tastes like kerosene
Comet
It’ll make you vomit
So get some comet and vomit today
Just waiting for it’s last minute lunge to Mars that kicks one of it’s moons onto a direct collision course with earth.
Cash out everything now and have a big party!
Interstellar? I think not. That would mean this ‘comet’ would have to have traveled at least 25 trillion miles to get to our solar system. That’s if it came from the closest star other than our own sun. Isn’t it far more likely it came from way out in our own Oort cloud?
Pretty cool cartoon and a very dumb movie.
It’s a comet.
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Comets are composed or H2O and some rocky materiel
I3Atlas has almost no H20.
Its not a comet, but at best it could be another type of natural object entirely.
Here is a real science/space journalist
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Avi Loeb is not a science/space journalist. He is a fully accredited astronomer.
Seven reasons that 3I Atlas is not a comet! Sept 14 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDYY_NC3pAU
If sublimation is taking place, it’s not doing it in a normal manner, but in the opposite manner, and is evidence it was sublimating 5-6AU [ roughly between the orbits of Saturn and Jupiter ]. If you look casually, it looks like a comet, but on a closer look, it is not.
1. It does not actually look like a comet.
The light polarization coming from the object is not like any observed before. Light from the object more closely resembles emitted light rather than reflected light.
2. It does not have a tail like a comet.
It has an anti-tail; is one of 8 of >8000 recorded comets to ever have an anti-tail. Our point of observation is very unfavorable to even notice an anti-tail which in most cases are an optical illusion created by the perspective of the observer. The anti-tail we are seeing is nearly edge on. This ‘tail’ extends 10 times further towards the Sun than its width (or tail). 10X the width of the halo surrounding the object.
3. It does not behave like a comet.
When first seen at 900 million miles from the Sun, it should not have been producing any outgassing of any kind. But it was active, and so it was behaving differently than any other comet ever observed.
4. It is not built like a comet.
The SphereX infrared observation showed its composition to have no water at all, unlike ‘normal’ comets. The Webb observation showed a little bit of water. But most of the observed emission was enormous amounts of CO2 being spewed out 348,000km, losing 70kg per second. H2O loss was 4.5kg per second - less than even tiny comets. CO emission is also very low. These, are never before seen ratios.
5. It’s not ‘metal’ enough to be a comet.
The presence of unusual metals in its coma make it unique in the extreme. Nickel without any iron and cyanide [which changes color from red to green ].
Nickel without any iron is completely unprecedented in the history of all comets. Nickel without other metals is characteristic in the manufacture of many nickel-based alloys like memory metals, like nickel titanium. [ Nickel titanium possesses several advantageous characteristics, including high corrosion resistance, good biocompatibility, excellent damping properties, high fatigue strength, and non-magnetic properties. See AI on this subject for more details. ]
6. It’s too big to be a comet.
The extreme redness of the light implies the light is not from reflected material, but from the object itself, possibly making it 46km in diameter. But, if the light is from icy particles around the object, then it could be just 5km on diameter. Still, if its is that small, then it is 5X the mass of the comet 2I Borosov’s mass, with a diameter of 0.5km.
Mass loss activity for its size is not nearly enough to be a comet, as seen previously. It’s an object of size that should only be seen once in 10-20,000 years. Its very, very strange that we have not seen many other smaller objects, before we saw one of this size.
7. Its trajectory is too artificial to be a comet.
It’s a 500:1 chance that an object would pass through the solar system close to the plane of the ecliptic. Its doing this a a very, very convenient time that allows it to pass very close - within 1AU to 3 planets - Mars, Venus, and Jupiter. Odds are as high as 10s of thousands or millions to one.
3I Atlas is not a comet. But if it is, then astronomy books need to be rewritten to include this new class of object.
Just how unusual does an object have to be before it’s not a comet? If something kinda, sorta looks like a duck, then most astronomers call it a duck and move on. Like so-called dark comets - some of which have been proven to be man-made. Like most astronomers are determined to categorize 3I as a comet before we have enough data to call it one.
It’s a very large rock ... we will be setup to launch a probe that will catch one for a closeup look.
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Since no one has seen the core of the object, calling it a ‘rock’ is just a wild guess. Its too unusual, in many respects, to be something so ordinary as a rock.
NASA has the opportunity to send a probe to catch up with Oumuamua, but is not, due to crushing budget cuts by 47 & Congress.
NASA is not even going to turn Mars Orbiter to look at it as it passes Mars on Oct 23 at much less than 1AU.
Forget the Juno Probe [ use up & EOL ] being sent to look as the object passes Jupiter, as NASA has now determined plunging into Jupiter’s atmosphere more important.
Isn’t it far more likely it came from way out in our own Oort cloud?
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Objects in space have orbits which can be calculated. So no it is not a ‘local’. Then there was 1I’Oumuamua object and 2I Borosov comet, both of which are interstellar objects. Like Oumuamua, 3I is exhibiting very unusual behavior for a random rock.
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