On October 21, 2025, as 3I/ATLAS reached solar conjunction with Earth, theInternational Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN) published a technical bulletin. Just a few lines, sterile language, a PDF uploaded at 21:08 PM UTC without a press release. Yet those lines sparked an online storm: a global monitoring campaign, telescopes coordinated from three continents, "planetary defense" protocols activated for the first time on an interstellar object.
The inevitable (?) debate has exploded on social media: NASA activating secret networks, theories about hidden threats, even speculation about alien technology. The reality, as ever, is more prosaic and, in some ways, more frustrating. But someone has to tell the story, because there are still some readers who care.
When a bulletin becomes a thriller
The campaign announced by the IAWN, which will last from the end of November to the end of January 2026, has a rather banal declared objective: improve the collection of astrometric data on cometsThe technical problem is real. Comets have a diffuse coma, a tail, and morphologies that "systematically shift centroid measurements away from the central brightness peak." Translation: it's difficult to determine the exact location of the nucleus when there's a cloud of gas and dust all around. Nothing new, techniques that have been consolidated for decades.
Yet several sites have transformed the whole thing into a "planetary defense exercise." Others have spoken of a "silent activation of NASA" (which, incidentally, has been shut down since October 1st). Still others have evoked Hidden threats, 74-year embargo on ESA data, NASA reclassification as an intelligence agencyA crescendo that has little to do with astronomy and a lot to do with the need for click-bait titles.
The IAWN is an international collaboration of organizations and astronomers recommended by a United Nations resolution to detect, monitor, and characterize potentially hazardous asteroids.
3I/ATLAS is the first interstellar object targeted by its campaigns, but that doesn't mean it poses a threat. It does mean it's an interesting target for testing procedures on a celestial body with unusual characteristics.
The comet that threatens no one
3I/ATLAS, I remember, was discovered on July 1, 2025 by the system ATLAS in Chile. Third interstellar object confirmed after First e 2I / Borisov. Hyperbolic orbit with eccentricity of 6.137, the highest ever recorded for an interstellar visitor. Its velocity was 68 km/s at perihelion, reached on October 29, 203 million kilometers from the Sun. Its anomalous composition: CO₂/water ratio of 8 to 1, the highest ever observed in a comet. Early activity, with water released already 450 million kilometers from the Sun, the distance at which comets in the Solar System usually remain silent.
All fascinating. Nothing dangerous. The trajectory is well defined, will pass 270 million kilometers from Earth on December 19, far beyond any risk threshold. Yet the media cycle has transformed a calibration campaign into a doomsday event.
The body Avi Loeb of Harvard, known for his controversial theories on interstellar objects, has suggested that 3I/ATLAS could be alien technology. The scientific community responded with skepticism, pointing out that all observations indicate classical cometary activity.
But Loeb's statements further fueled the media hype, turning a scientific discussion into a spectacle.
3I/ATLAS, the real problem is called timing
The issue isn't whether 3I/ATLAS is a threat. I repeat, and try to help stop this hysteria. It isn't. The issue is that We are witnessing one of the rarest astronomical events in history with NASA completely out of commission.The U.S. federal shutdown began on October 1, 2025, just as the comet was approaching Mars. Two days after the shutdown began, 3I/ATLAS made its closest approach to the Red Planet. The camera HiRISE of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter could have captured high-resolution images. We don't know if she succeeded. And we don't know if we'll ever see those images.
Even worse: a study by Samuel Grant and Geraint Jones ofEuropean Space Agency he calculated that the probe Europa Clipper NASA's probe could cross the ion tail of 3I/ATLAS between late October and early November. It would be the first time in history that a probe has intercepted interstellar particles. The scientific instruments would need to be activated at the right time. The shutdown makes everything uncertain.
Disinformation disguised as information
The 3I/ATLAS case highlighted a larger problem: the ease with which even publications that profess to be scientific dissemination slip into clickbait without restraintHeadlines speak of "hidden threats," "secret exercises," "activation of planetary protocols." All this while NASA, which coordinates the IAWN, has been literally shut down for over three weeks and hasn't even updated its websites.
The IAWN campaign is public and documented, with registration open until November 7th and a mandatory workshop on November 10th. Nothing secret. Nothing alarming. It's a calibration exercise on a complex target. But when narrative becomes more important than facts, even a technical bulletin can turn into a conspiracy theory.
3I/ATLAS, the opportunity that is slipping away
Each interstellar object discovered so far has revealed different characteristics. First it appeared dry, with no visible cometary activity. 2I / Borisov It was full of carbon monoxide. 3I/ATLAS releases water at unusual distances and displays a previously unseen CO₂/water ratio. It could come from the thick disk of the Milky Way, a region populated by very ancient stars, with an age estimated to be over seven billion years old.
This is precious information. Fragments of other star systems that reach us once every few years. And at the crucial moment, we have the world's leading space agency crippled by a federal budget crisis.
The IAWN campaign will continue. Ground-based telescopes will collect data. But some opportunities, such as observations from Mars or ion tail interception, could be lost forever. Not because of a mysterious comet or secret protocols. It's a matter of unfortunate timing and misplaced priorities.
3I/ATLAS will be visible from Earth again in December, when it will be at its closest approach. Perhaps by then NASA will be back on the ground. Perhaps we will have made up for some of the lost time.
Or perhaps we will continue to talk about nonexistent conspiracies while real scientific opportunities slip away, one after another, in silence. But who cares, right? What about the allure of conspiracy and the revenue from views?
