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‘Massive’ comet hurtling toward us is larger than previously thought, could be alien tech, scientist says: ‘It could change everything for us’
nypost.com ^ | Sep. 29, 2025 | Ben Cost

Posted on 09/29/2025 11:15:02 AM PDT by V_TWIN

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1 posted on 09/29/2025 11:15:02 AM PDT by V_TWIN
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To: V_TWIN

Correct link:
-

https://nypost.com/2025/09/29/science/comet-and-potential-alien-probe-3i-atlas-larger-than-predicted/


2 posted on 09/29/2025 11:17:05 AM PDT by V_TWIN (RIP Charlie Kirk)
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To: V_TWIN

I for one welcome our new robot overlords.


3 posted on 09/29/2025 11:17:08 AM PDT by crusty old prospector
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To: V_TWIN

Right out of Starship Troopers.


4 posted on 09/29/2025 11:17:20 AM PDT by DownInFlames (P)
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To: Red Badger

We’re all gonna die ping!


5 posted on 09/29/2025 11:17:49 AM PDT by V_TWIN (RIP Charlie Kirk)
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To: V_TWIN

Linky no worky.


6 posted on 09/29/2025 11:18:15 AM PDT by gdzla (Tyrannis Seditio, Obsequium Deo)
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To: V_TWIN

7 posted on 09/29/2025 11:18:29 AM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegals are put up in 5 Star hotels....................)
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To: All

Don’t get my hopes up


8 posted on 09/29/2025 11:18:44 AM PDT by escapefromboston (Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.)
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To: V_TWIN
"potentially has alien tech"

And is also potentially watermelon flavored.
9 posted on 09/29/2025 11:19:34 AM PDT by Telepathic Intruder
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To: gdzla

https://nypost.com/2025/09/29/science/comet-and-potential-alien-probe-3i-atlas-larger-than-predicted/


10 posted on 09/29/2025 11:20:04 AM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegals are put up in 5 Star hotels....................)
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To: V_TWIN

no, no and no it isn’t.


11 posted on 09/29/2025 11:20:08 AM PDT by BigFreakinToad (107 Days of Kamal's BS.)
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To: V_TWIN

“‘Massive’ comet hurtling toward us ...”

Nah. This large comet will get as close as 170M miles to Earth.


12 posted on 09/29/2025 11:21:26 AM PDT by plain talk
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To: V_TWIN

Mighty close to the plane of the ecliptic. That’s pretty fine “interstellar” shootin’.


13 posted on 09/29/2025 11:21:51 AM PDT by Empire_of_Liberty
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To: crusty old prospector

Maybe they’ll have us over for dinner.


14 posted on 09/29/2025 11:22:00 AM PDT by laplata (They want each crisis to take the greatest toll possible.)
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To: Red Badger

Gonna need Harry Stamper and the boys on this one


15 posted on 09/29/2025 11:22:03 AM PDT by V_TWIN (RIP Charlie Kirk)
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To: V_TWIN

Per the article:

Must be Democrar scientists.

Border Patrol chases cyclist after he yells he’s ‘not a US citizen’
We’re gonna need a bigger telescope.

Scientists have discovered that the 3I/ATLAS — a Manhattan-sized interstellar object that potentially has alien tech — is much larger than previously thought, according to a new report.

First discovered by NASA on July 1, the cosmic anomaly has been under watch by Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb and his team as it shoots across the solar system. The object, which is believed to be a comet, reportedly has interstellar origins, making it the third ever object from beyond the solar system ever detected after ‘Oumuamua, which was discovered in 2017, and 2I/Borisov in 2019.

Advertisement

Now the team has gleaned some “sizable” new intel on the interstellar visitor, namely that the “mass of 3I/ATLAS must be bigger than 33 billion tons,” per a blog post by Loeb.

Illustration of Earth and a comet in space.
3
Scientists have discovered that the 3I/ATLAS — a massive interstellar object that potentially has alien tech — is much larger than previously thought, per a new paper Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb and his team.
Telescope image of interstellar object 3I/Atlas (A11pl3Z).
3
Telescope image of interstellar object 3I/Atlas (A11pl3Z) circled in red.
K Ly/Deep Random Survey / SWNS
They arrived at this number by calculating the object’s trajectory to find that ATLAS’s “gravitational acceleration” is “smaller than 49 feet per day, squared,” Futurism reported.

Advertisement

This was then compared to how much mass it was shedding via gases and dust particles to determine the size.

Loeb and co. also found that the diameter of its solid-density nucleus must be larger than 3.1 miles — the upper limit of current projections that are based on observations by the Hubble Space Telescope.

This makes it larger than “three to five orders of magnitude” more massive than its predecessors, ‘Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov.

Dr. Avi Loeb.
3
“The hypothesis in question is that [31/ATLAS] is a technological artifact, and furthermore has active intelligence. If this is the case, then two possibilities follow,” Dr. Loeb (pictured) and his team wrote in a paper published on July 17. “First, that its intentions are entirely benign and second, they are malign.”
Chris Michel, National Academy of Sciences, 2023
Advertisement

Loeb is particularly fascinated by ATLAS’ rarity, which is akin to a needle in an intergalactic haystack. “Given the limited reservoir of heavy elements, we should have discovered on the order of a hundred thousand interstellar objects on the 0.1-kilometer scale of 1I/’Oumuamua before finding 3I/ATLAS, yet we only detected two interstellar objects previously,” he exclaimed.

See Also
Hubble Space Telescope image of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS.
Manhattan-sized interstellar object 3I/ATLAS now turning green as something is ‘switched on’ as it nears Sun
Thankfully, despite rocketing toward home base, ATLAS poses no threat to Earth. However, its anomalous trajectory will bring it suspiciously close to Jupiter, Venus and Mars, with the entity passing within 1.67 million miles of Mars’ orbit around the Sun over the weekend.

More controversially, Loeb and his team believe that the celestial passerby, which is comprised mostly of carbon dioxide, could potentially be an alien probe that was sent to conduct reconnaissance on Earth — possibly with hostile intentions.

Advertisement

“The hypothesis in question is that [31/ATLAS] is a technological artifact, and furthermore has active intelligence. If this is the case, then two possibilities follow,” Dr. Loeb, Adam Drowl and Adam Hibberd, wrote in a paper published on July 17. “First, that its intentions are entirely benign and second, they are malign.”

They felt that it could be a spacecraft based on several pieces of evidence, namely its non-gravitational acceleration and its unusual approach to Venus, Mars and Jupiter, which the paper postulated could be “key target planets.”


16 posted on 09/29/2025 11:22:58 AM PDT by tired&retired (Blessings )
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To: V_TWIN

Per the article:

Must be Democrar scientists.

Border Patrol chases cyclist after he yells he’s ‘not a US citizen’
We’re gonna need a bigger telescope.

Scientists have discovered that the 3I/ATLAS — a Manhattan-sized interstellar object that potentially has alien tech — is much larger than previously thought, according to a new report.

First discovered by NASA on July 1, the cosmic anomaly has been under watch by Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb and his team as it shoots across the solar system. The object, which is believed to be a comet, reportedly has interstellar origins, making it the third ever object from beyond the solar system ever detected after ‘Oumuamua, which was discovered in 2017, and 2I/Borisov in 2019.

Advertisement

Now the team has gleaned some “sizable” new intel on the interstellar visitor, namely that the “mass of 3I/ATLAS must be bigger than 33 billion tons,” per a blog post by Loeb.

Illustration of Earth and a comet in space.
3
Scientists have discovered that the 3I/ATLAS — a massive interstellar object that potentially has alien tech — is much larger than previously thought, per a new paper Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb and his team.
Telescope image of interstellar object 3I/Atlas (A11pl3Z).
3
Telescope image of interstellar object 3I/Atlas (A11pl3Z) circled in red.
K Ly/Deep Random Survey / SWNS
They arrived at this number by calculating the object’s trajectory to find that ATLAS’s “gravitational acceleration” is “smaller than 49 feet per day, squared,” Futurism reported.

Advertisement

This was then compared to how much mass it was shedding via gases and dust particles to determine the size.

Loeb and co. also found that the diameter of its solid-density nucleus must be larger than 3.1 miles — the upper limit of current projections that are based on observations by the Hubble Space Telescope.

This makes it larger than “three to five orders of magnitude” more massive than its predecessors, ‘Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov.

Dr. Avi Loeb.
3
“The hypothesis in question is that [31/ATLAS] is a technological artifact, and furthermore has active intelligence. If this is the case, then two possibilities follow,” Dr. Loeb (pictured) and his team wrote in a paper published on July 17. “First, that its intentions are entirely benign and second, they are malign.”
Chris Michel, National Academy of Sciences, 2023
Advertisement

Loeb is particularly fascinated by ATLAS’ rarity, which is akin to a needle in an intergalactic haystack. “Given the limited reservoir of heavy elements, we should have discovered on the order of a hundred thousand interstellar objects on the 0.1-kilometer scale of 1I/’Oumuamua before finding 3I/ATLAS, yet we only detected two interstellar objects previously,” he exclaimed.

See Also
Hubble Space Telescope image of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS.
Manhattan-sized interstellar object 3I/ATLAS now turning green as something is ‘switched on’ as it nears Sun
Thankfully, despite rocketing toward home base, ATLAS poses no threat to Earth. However, its anomalous trajectory will bring it suspiciously close to Jupiter, Venus and Mars, with the entity passing within 1.67 million miles of Mars’ orbit around the Sun over the weekend.

More controversially, Loeb and his team believe that the celestial passerby, which is comprised mostly of carbon dioxide, could potentially be an alien probe that was sent to conduct reconnaissance on Earth — possibly with hostile intentions.

Advertisement

“The hypothesis in question is that [31/ATLAS] is a technological artifact, and furthermore has active intelligence. If this is the case, then two possibilities follow,” Dr. Loeb, Adam Drowl and Adam Hibberd, wrote in a paper published on July 17. “First, that its intentions are entirely benign and second, they are malign.”

They felt that it could be a spacecraft based on several pieces of evidence, namely its non-gravitational acceleration and its unusual approach to Venus, Mars and Jupiter, which the paper postulated could be “key target planets.”


17 posted on 09/29/2025 11:23:03 AM PDT by tired&retired (Blessings )
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To: V_TWIN

“potentially has alien tech”

Say what?


18 posted on 09/29/2025 11:23:06 AM PDT by ChessExpert (Infidels of the world unite against the evil that is Islam.)
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To: V_TWIN
‘It could change everything for us’

"Could"

In other words, we are just pulling this out of our exit orifice.

19 posted on 09/29/2025 11:23:24 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum (Je suis Charlie Kirk.)
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To: tired&retired

Sorry.

Cut & paste went wild on me. 😥


20 posted on 09/29/2025 11:24:04 AM PDT by tired&retired (Blessings )
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