Comet 3I/ATLAS became a real sensation because it turned out to have flown in from interstellar space. However, some scientists believe that it is even more interesting, as it may be a space probe from another civilization. Others refute this theory.
Interstellar comet
When scientists discovered object 3I/ATLAS on July 1, 2025, they already knew it would be a sensation. The fact was that its speed was much greater than that of any comet flying toward us from the vicinity of the Solar System.
This means its arrival from another star system, making it the third interstellar visitor known to humans. Since it is moving at a speed of 245,000 km/h, it should reach its closest point to the Sun in October, after which it will begin to move away from it and eventually disappear into darkness.
The comet is believed to be about 20 km in diameter and may even be older than the Solar System. For scientists, it is already one of the most important objects for study. However, one scientist has suggested that it could be even more sensational.
Extraterrestrial probe
It was achieved by none other than Avi Loeb, a person considered to be the most controversial scientist of our time. During his career, he published a huge number of scientific papers and made many assumptions that other scientists considered crazy, but some of them were later confirmed.
The assumption that 3I/ATLAS is an interstellar probe sent by aliens is perfectly in line with Loeb’s thinking. He already suggested something similar about 1I/ʻOumuamua in 2017. Now he has done it again, and scientists are once again discussing how right he might be.
Some aspects are truly thought-provoking, as the probe’s trajectory passes close to Jupiter, Mars, and Venus. And there is nothing surprising about the idea of another civilization launching such a probe. We did the same thing when we launched Voyager 1 and 2.
However, comparison with terrestrial devices casts doubt on the extraterrestrial nature of the object. Voyager 1 was about 10 meters in size, and we could only notice something like that when crossing the asteroid belt.
But 3I/ATLAS is much larger, and we noticed it earlier. In addition, it has a clearly defined tail of gases, but there are no signs of radio signals or static discharges. And that’s not to mention the fact that, for some reason, it doesn’t fly past the most interesting object in the inner part of the Solar System — Earth.
All this suggests that Loeb is causing unnecessary panic this time around. So far, 3I/ATLA looks like nothing more than a very old cosmic iceberg that has been drifting through the Universe for billions of years.
According to phys.org
