Something strange is moving through our solar system — and scientists are scrambling to figure out exactly what it is.
A giant interstellar object, known as 3I/ATLAS, has captured the attention of scientists around the world after new research revealed it’s much larger than anyone expected — and may even be a technological probe from another civilization.
And that’s not science fiction. That’s coming straight from Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb and his research team.
The object was discovered by NASA on July 1st, and it’s now being tracked as it speeds across space. It’s officially the third interstellar object ever recorded, following the more well-known ‘Oumuamua in 2017 and comet 2I/Borisov in 2019.
But unlike those two, ATLAS is doing things that don’t really make sense — at least not for a typical space rock.
Loeb’s team has now confirmed that ATLAS weighs more than 33 billion tons — and that its core could be over three miles wide. That’s roughly the size of Manhattan. It’s covered in carbon dioxide, shedding gas and dust as it nears the Sun, and it’s doing something even stranger: it’s accelerating without any clear reason.
That’s raised more than a few eyebrows.
This kind of non-gravitational acceleration is something Loeb has studied before. When ‘Oumuamua behaved in a similar way, he suggested it could be alien tech using solar power or light-sailing to move. Now, with ATLAS showing even more dramatic behavior, the theory is being taken more seriously.
Loeb’s new paper goes further than before. It explores the possibility that ATLAS is not just a random space object, but a technological artifact — possibly sent to observe Earth.
The paper outlines two possibilities:
One, that the object is benign and just gathering information.
Two, that it’s malign, and its presence could mean something more threatening.
It’s important to note — ATLAS is not on a collision course with Earth. There’s no risk of it slamming into the planet. But it is flying dangerously close to several planets in our neighborhood, including Jupiter, Venus, and Mars. Over the weekend, it passed within 1.67 million miles of Mars’ orbit.
That’s close by space standards.
And it’s not just its path that’s odd. The object has a low retrograde tilt, meaning it’s spinning in the opposite direction from everything else in our solar system. That could allow it to move more easily between planets, according to the paper.
Loeb and his team believe this weird movement may actually help the object measure orbits and masses of planets — possibly as part of a recon mission to prepare for a larger approach into the inner solar system.
If it sounds like science fiction, that’s exactly what’s making it so fascinating.
Most comets and asteroids behave in predictable ways. They spin a certain way, they follow gravity, they break apart as they near the Sun. But ATLAS isn’t following the script. It’s behaving in ways that scientists haven’t quite seen before — and the explanations are getting more and more unusual.
Could it be a natural object doing strange things? Sure. But the fact that multiple scientists are openly discussing the possibility of alien technology, in a peer-reviewed context, is a major shift in how we think about what’s out there.
As Loeb puts it: “We should have found hundreds of objects like this before discovering ATLAS. That we didn’t? That’s what makes this so rare — and worth watching very closely.”
The object continues to move through the solar system this week, and telescopes around the globe are pointed its way.
For now, one thing’s clear: this isn’t just another space rock.
