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Scientist Watching to See If Mysterious Object Visiting Our Solar System Releases Any Probes

Ever since a mysterious interstellar object, since dubbed 3I/ATLAS, was first spotted screaming into our solar system this year, famed Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb has been raising the possibility that the interstellar interloper is an "extraterrestrial artifact" that was sent to us by an intelligent alien race. Researchers have broadly come to the consensus that 3I/ATLAS is a comet. Most recently, observations by the Gemini South telescope in Chile confirmed that its tail is growing longer,

Could We Probe an Interstellar Object Before It Zips Out of the Solar System?

In June, a mysterious object was spotted hurtling through the inner solar system on a hyperbolic path. It was later confirmed as an interstellar object, the third such entity from outside our solar system to be seen in the night skies. The rare discovery has prompted a scientific scramble to understand the object and its origins, including potential probes to study it up close. Scientists at the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) put together a mission study that outlines how a spacecraft coul

Scientist Says Mysterious Object Approaching Earth May Be Alien Artifact

Mundane wayward space snowball, or extraterrestrial visitor? Astronomers believe that our solar system's latest and only third ever confirmed interstellar visitor, 3I/ATLAS, is almost certainly a comet. But lingering questions about the object means it's not yet an open and shut case. Amid that uncertainty, famed Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb is pushing the possibility that the interstellar interloper is an "extraterrestrial artifact" — perhaps even an "alien mothership" — here to menace or obse

Mysterious Object Hurtling Toward Us From Beyond Solar System Appears to Be Emitting Its Own Light, Scientists Find

Last month, astronomers made an exciting discovery, observing an interstellar object — only the third ever observed — hurtling toward the center of the solar system. The object, dubbed 3I/ATLAS, has caught the attention of Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb, who has a long track record of making controversial predictions about previous interstellar objects being relics from an extraterrestrial civilization. While there's been a growing consensus among astronomers that the latest object is a comet, Lo

Mysterious Object Hurtling Toward Us From Beyond Solar System Appears to Be Emitting Its Own Light, Scientists Say

Last month, astronomers made an exciting discovery, observing an interstellar object — only the third ever observed — hurtling toward the center of the solar system. The object, dubbed 3I/ATLAS, has caught the attention of Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb, who has a long track record of making controversial predictions about previous interstellar objects being relics from an extraterrestrial civilization. While there's been a growing consensus among astronomers that the latest object is a comet, Lo

Sharp Hubble Images Confirm 3I/Atlas as Comet

Astronomers at the Pan-STARRS Observatory in Hawaii made history in 2017 when they detected 'Oumuamua, the first interstellar object (ISO) ever observed. Two years later, the interstellar comet 2I/Borisov became the second ISO ever observed. And on July 1st, 2025, the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) in Rio Hurtado detected a third interstellar object in our Solar System, the comet now known as 3I/ATLAS (or C/2025 N1 ATLAS). Like its predecessors, the arrival of this objec

Hubble Captures Glorious New Image of That Mysterious Object Cruising Into Our Solar System

As the mysterious interstellar object known as 3I/ATLAS plummets through our Solar System, NASA's good old Hubble Space Telescope has captured the best look yet at the interstellar visitor. On July 21, the interstellar interloper passed close enough to Earth — and to Hubble, which orbits us at about 320 miles above the planet — that the veteran space telescope was able to capture a surprisingly detailed image of it, NASA explains in a statement about the image. In the space agency's incredible

Scientists Just Found Something Very Weird About the Mysterious Object Hurtling Into Our Solar System

As evidence continues to mount that the mysterious object with interstellar origins currently speeding toward the inner solar system at a breakneck speed is a comet, not everybody's convinced quite yet. Harvard astronomer and alien hunter Avi Loeb raised the far-fetched, yet tantalizing possibility that the object, which was first spotted by astronomers earlier this year, could have been sent by an extraterrestrial civilization. While he admitted in a blog post last month that it's most likely

Project Hyperion: Interstellar ship design competition

Project Hyperion explores the feasibility of crewed interstellar travel via generation ships, using current and near-future technologies. A generation ship is a hypothetical spacecraft designed for long-duration interstellar travel, where the journey may take centuries to complete. The idea behind a generation ship is that the initial crew would live, reproduce, and die on the ship, with their descendants continuing the journey until reaching the destination. These ships are often envisioned as

Hubble Snaps Photos of Interstellar Invader

The Hubble Space Telescope has snapped some spooky looking photos of our solar system's newest interstellar invader on the run. The object, dubbed 3I/ATLAS, was first spotted careening through the outer limits of the Sun's domain earlier this month, and appears to be a comet. Upon closer inspection, its speed was found to be so incredible that there could be no doubt of its extrasolar origins, making it only the third detected interstellar object in history. Tantalizingly, it's hurtling straig

Interstellar Visitor Zipping Through Our Solar System Could Be a Hostile Probe, Alien-Hyping Scientists Warn

There’s a visitor in town, and its name is 3I/ATLAS. The presumed interstellar comet presents a rare opportunity for astronomers to study an object born a long time ago in a star system far, far away. But a new paper uploaded to the preprint arXiv server asks an intriguing question: Is the object actually alien technology? For Harvard astronomer and study co-author Abraham Loeb, this is not his first interstellar rodeo. In 2018, Loeb proposed that the interstellar object ‘Oumuamua might be an a

Project Lyra – Exploring Interstellar Objects

Project Lyra develops concepts for reaching interstellar objects such as 1I / 'Oumuamua and 2I / Borisov with a spacecraft, based on near-term technologies. But what is an interstellar object? Laser sail spacecraft arriving at 'Oumuamua, the interstellar asteroid (Credit: Maciej Rebisz) What is 1I/'Oumuamua and what is an Interstellar Object? On October 19th 2017, the University of Hawaii’s Pan-STARRS 1 telescope on Haleakala discovered a fast-moving object near the Earth, initially named A/2

Harvard Paper Explores Possibility That Object Approaching From Beyond Solar System Is Hostile Alien Technology

A strange interstellar object is hurtling its way toward our pale blue dot — and according to a Harvard astronomer, there's a chance it's not a benign asteroid or comet, but instead some harmful form of alien tech. In a new, yet-to-be-peer-reviewed paper, Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb — the same scientist who suggested that 'Oumuamua, the first interstellar object ever detected back in 2017, was alien in nature — teamed up with researchers from the Britain-based Initiative for Interstellar Studie

Our Best View Yet of Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS

A comet unlike any seen before has fixated astronomers around the world. An observatory in Hawaii has unveiled the most stunning image of this ancient interstellar visitor yet. The Gemini North telescope on Maunakea, Hawaii, recently snapped a close-up of 3I/ATLAS, the third interstellar object ever discovered. The telescope’s highly sensitive Multi-Object Spectrograph captured the comet’s compact coma—a cloud of gas and dust surrounding its icy nucleus—in striking detail. 3I/ATLAS is inbound t

Astronomer Says the Object Approaching Us From Beyond the Solar System Is Not What We Think

Earlier this month, astronomers were thrilled to spot an interstellar object — only the third of its kind ever observed — hurtling toward the center of the solar system on an extremely unusual trajectory and at a breakneck velocity. While we're only beginning to understand the unusual object, dubbed 3I/ATLAS, the discovery led to widespread speculation, with some scientists suggesting that it may be almost as old as the Milky Way galaxy itself, and billions of years older than our own Sun. Uns

Everything We Know About the Interstellar Object 3I/ATLAS

On July 2, NASA revealed the existence of 3I/ATLAS, only the third ever interstellar object observed in the universe. These are objects that exist in interstellar space—the areas between stars—and which are not gravitationally bound to any star. The two other interstellar objects discovered to date are the comets 1I/ʻOumuamua and 2I/Borisov. 3I/ATLAS was discovered on July 1, when its existence was reported by a telescope at Rio Hurtado in Chile, operated by the Asteroid Terrestrial Impact Aler

An Interstellar Comet Is Here, and Its Age Is Mind-Bending

This article was updated at 9:00 a.m. ET on Friday, July 11, to include new information. After defending his PhD thesis on modeling interstellar objects on Monday, June 30, Matthew Hopkins intended to take some well-deserved time off. It would appear the universe had other plans for him. The very next day, the Atlas Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) telescope in Rio Hurtado, Chile, detected a mysterious object whizzing toward the Sun. Early observations suggested that it came from o

The Interstellar Visitor Hurtling Toward the Center of Our Star System Is Unimaginably Ancient, Scientists Say

Astronomers recently confirmed that a mysterious object, dubbed 3I/ATLAS, came from interstellar space and is now blowing through the solar system at extremely high speeds. It's only the third confirmed interstellar object to have reached our star system, following 'Oumuamua, which was spotted in 2018, and a comet dubbed 2I/Borisov, which was identified in tk. Now, scientists are racing to better understand 3I/ATLAS and whether it can shed more light on the nature of interstellar objects like

A Third Interstellar Visitor Is Here, and Astronomers Might Know Where It Came From

After defending his PhD thesis on modeling interstellar objects on Monday, June 30, Matthew Hopkins intended to take some well-deserved time off. It would appear the universe had other plans for him. The very next day, the Atlas Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) telescope in Rio Hurtado, Chile, detected a mysterious object whizzing toward the Sun. Early observations suggested that it came from outside our solar system, potentially marking the third discovery of an interstellar object

Mysterious Object Headed Into Our Solar System Is Coming From the Center of the Galaxy

Folks, it's official: the object that astronomers recently spotted blowing through the outer solar system came from interstellar space. Yesterday, the intriguing stranger was named A11pl3Z. Now, it's earned the esteemed designation 3I/ATLAS — that "I" standing for "interstellar." 3I/ATLAS is currently located between the orbits of the asteroid belt and Jupiter, the New York Times reports, where it's about 416 million miles away from the Sun, NASA said. That's equal to four and a half times the

Confirmed: A Rare Interstellar Object Is Passing Through Our Solar System

Update: July 3, 09:24 a.m. ET: On Wednesday, July 2, the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center confirmed that an interstellar object is traveling through our solar system. Officially named 3I/ATLAS, the object appears to be a comet hurtling toward the Sun. Original article follows. Astronomers are scrambling to gather data on a mysterious object that’s currently hurtling through the solar system. Preliminary observations suggest it came from interstellar space, and if confirme

Large Object From Interstellar Space Detected Heading Toward Center of Solar System

A new interstellar object has been spotted careening into the solar system at an extremely unusual trajectory. If its interstellar origins were to be confirmed, it'd only be the third of its kind spotted in the solar system in history. An oblong interstellar object, dubbed 'Oumuamua, was first discovered in 2017, while comet 2I/Borisov was detected in 2019. The latest addition, provisionally named A11pl3Z, has a highly unusual trajectory, leading astronomers to believe it may have also origina

Interstellar Flight: Perspectives and Patience

Interstellar Flight: Perspectives and Patience This morning’s post grows out of listening to John Coltrane’s album Sun Ship earlier in the week. If you’re new to jazz, Sun Ship is not where you want to begin, as Coltrane was already veering in a deeply avant garde direction when he recorded it in 1965. But over the years it has held a fascination for me. Critic Edward Mendelowitz called it “a riveting glimpse of a band traveling at warp speed, alternating shards of chaos and beauty, the white h