The interstellar object 3I/ATLAS, a strange visitor from deep space, is causing worry and a lot of scientific study because of its very strange features. People first saw the item in July 2025. It’s thought to be almost as big as Manhattan.
According to a story in the NY Post, the International Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN) and NASA launched an emergency defensive mission earlier this week to look into 3I/ATLAS in more detail after it started acting in ways that had never been seen before.
A Harvard scientist is worried about a huge “anomaly.”
Avi Loeb, an astrophysicist at Harvard, is especially interested in the object since he has thought about the prospect of alien technology coming into our solar system before. Loeb has strongly warned that the comet might be a “black swan event,” which is a rare, unpredictable event that could have huge, unexpected effects on people.
Loeb told media that data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) shows that 3I/ATLAS might weigh an incredible 33 billion tons. He remarked, “It’s at least a thousand times bigger than any other object we’ve seen in space.” The immensity alone makes you ask, “Why has such a huge object entered our solar system now?”
The theory that aliens are probing us is based on strange behavior.
Loeb listed a number of important things that made 3I/ATLAS seem unnatural:
“Anti-Tail” Jet: The object has been seen with a jet of particles, a “anti-tail,” that points toward the Sun instead of away from it, which is not how comets usually behave.
Nickel Emission That Isn’t Natural: 3I/ATLAS is letting off a plume of nickel, but there are no traces of iron. This is very strange to scientists, especially since nickel tetracarbonyl, the molecule that is being released, has only ever been seen in human-made things, not in nature.
Non-Gravitational Acceleration: To make things even more mysterious, the comet is moving faster than gravity would allow. It is speeding up and changing direction in ways that gravity alone can’t explain.
Its path will eventually take it close to several large planets, including as Jupiter, Venus, and Mars, which makes the inquiry even more important.
Loeb has famously said that the item is like a “Trojan horse,” which means it might look like a natural comet at first but could actually be hiding something man-made. He still thinks that 3I/ATLAS could be a type of alien technology, maybe even a probe for gathering information.
Monitoring Starts: No Threat Right Now
NASA authorities have said that 3I/ATLAS does not pose an immediate threat to Earth, even though it has been acting strangely and there have been warnings.
However, IAWN will keep a close eye on the object from November 27, 2025, until January 27, 2026. The object should be getting closer to the Sun soon. After this perihelion, it might escape the solar system, or, as Loeb suggests, it might use the Sun’s gravity to make a big adjustment in its course. For now, the world is waiting for additional information to find out if 3I/ATLAS is just a strange thing in space or a “black swan event” that could have terrible effects.