On October 29, 2025, as comet 3I/ATLAS grazed the Sun at 210 million kilometers, someone on the internet was already preparing videos. Eerie music, flashing text, a tone like "NASA doesn't want you to know about this." The comet was there, real, measurable, with a hyperbolic orbit that made it unmistakably interstellar. But the question wasn't "where did it come from?" or "what does it tell us about the formation of star systems?" The question was: "Are they aliens?"
It happened with 'Oumuamua in 2017It happened with 2I / Borisov in 2019. And now it's happening again. Every time an interstellar object passes through the Solar System, the first reaction isn't scientific curiosity. It's alien speculation. And every time, we lose something.
A 7-billion-year time capsule
Very short recap, as if not everyone knows by now: the 4comet 3I/ATLAS was discovered on July 1, 2025 from the telescope ATLAS In Chile. A rapidly moving faint spot in the constellation Sagittarius. Within a few days, its orbit was clear: hyperbolic, with an eccentricity of 6,15, the highest ever recorded for an interstellar visitor. Its speed was 220.000 kilometers per hour. Third confirmed interstellar object in the history of modern astronomy.
The orbital analyses conducted by theOxford University They revealed something extraordinary: the comet came from the thick disk of the Milky Way, a region populated by very ancient stars. Its estimated age exceeds 7 billion years, making it about 2,5 billion years older than our Solar System. When this comet formed, the Sun did not yet exist. Earth was a chemical hypothesis billions of years in the future.
Il James Webb Space Telescope revealed a unique chemical composition: a carbon dioxide to water ratio of 8 to 1, the highest ever observed in a comet. Spectroscopic observations also show the presence of nickel but not iron, an anomaly never seen before in comets in the Solar System.
These chemical data provide valuable insights into star formation processes in remote regions of the galaxy.
The time-wasting question
And here the protagonist of all time enters the scene: Avi Loeb, astrophysicist of theHarvard University. Loeb published a paper on arXiv wondering whether comet 3I/ATLAS could be alien technology. The hypothesis is based on several characteristics: the emission of nickel without iron (similar to terrestrial industrial refining processes), cometary activity at a great distance from the Sun, and a so-called "anti-tail" observed by the hubble telescope.
The problem isn't making hypotheses, of course not: even if Loeb (whom we've covered many times) has become a bit like that nice friend who always tells the same story. The problem is that the hypothesis goes viral before the data. The hashtag #31Atlas has exploded on social media (with the I mistaken for a 1, because verifying is hard work). Videos with robotic voices, conspiracy theories, speculations about “activations of secret protocols”.
In vain the NASA andESA They had to release statements to clarify that the comet is doing exactly what you would expect a comet to do. Tom StatlerNASA's chief scientist for small solar bodies, said it bluntly: “It looks like a comet. It does comet-like things. It resembles in every way the comets we know.”
Comet 3I/ATLAS: What We're Missing
While online debates about alien spacecraft rage, astronomers are racing against time. Comet 3I/ATLAS reached perihelion on October 29th and is now receding. The time window for collecting data is limitedThe probes Mars express ed ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter ofESA have already captured images during its passage near Mars. The missions Hera ed Europa Clipper could cross the comet's ion tail, a once-in-a-lifetime scientific opportunity.
The anomalous composition of 3I/ATLAS tells a story worth listening to. The high concentration of CO₂ suggests that it formed near the "ice line" in the protoplanetary disk of its parent star, under extremely cold conditions. Alternatively, during its billion-year interstellar journey, it was exposed to radiation that sublimated more volatile compounds like water, concentrating carbon dioxide. Both explanations tell us something fundamental: Planetary formation processes are not universal, but vary from system to system.
The price of speculation
Flavio Vanetti, from the pages of Mystery Bùfo on Corriere della Sera, he wrote something important On this matter: Comet 3I/ATLAS should challenge our knowledge, not confirm our fantasies. You're right. The problem isn't the alien hypothesis itself, but rather the fact that it becomes the only question that matters. And when the only question is the wrong one, we lose sight of everything else.
La observation campaign of theInternational Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN) has been interpreted online as "activation of secret protocols." In reality, it's an exercise to test monitoring procedures on an object with unusual characteristics. No threats, no conspiracies. Just operational astronomy. But the "hidden truth" narrative is sexier than spectroscopic data, so that's the one spreading.
The most frustrating fact? All this is happening while the NASA It is halted due to a federal shutdown. On October 1, 2025, just as the comet was approaching Mars, the shutdown began. The chamber HiRISE of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter could have captured high-resolution images.
We don't know if it succeeded. And we don't know if we'll ever see those images. At the crucial moment, the world's leading space agency is stalled by a budget crisis. And, ironically, this halt will fuel further rumors of "censorship." Ad libitum.
What's left when comet 3I/ATLAS goes away?
Comet 3I/ATLAS will definitively leave the Solar System in the coming months. Its hyperbolic orbit predicts no return. It will disappear into interstellar space, taking with it chemical secrets we have not had time to study. Each interstellar object discovered so far has revealed different characteristics. 'Oumuamua it appeared dry, with no visible cometary activity. 2I / Borisov It was rich in carbon monoxide. 3I/ATLAS releases water at unusual distances and shows a previously unseen CO₂/water ratio.
They're fragments of other star systems that reach us every now and then. Natural samples of extrasolar material that we can study without having to launch interstellar probes. Cosmic time capsules. And we spend our time arguing about whether they're spaceships.
The lesson never changes. Whenever something extraordinary crosses our field of vision, our first reaction is to fill the knowledge gap with the simplest speculation. It's easier to believe in aliens than to study spectroscopy. It's easier to share a conspiracy video than to read a scientific paper. But the consequence is always the same: we miss the opportunity to learn something true about the universe.
Comet 3I/ATLAS poses no threat to Earth. It will come closest to our planet within 270 million kilometers, almost twice the distance from the Earth to the Sun. It's not a spaceship. It's not a technological artifact. It's a comet. It does what comets do. Only it does it with a chemical composition that tells us how planets form in other corners of the galaxy.
And that, if you think about it, is much more interesting than any alien invasion.
