Was there an Alien Flying Through The Solar System
- Grayson Goldberg
- 2 hours ago
- 2 min read
You may have heard, but people are freaking out about a fly-by possibly made by aliens. This is due to the interstellar comet known as 3I/ATLAS, which was discovered in July of 2025. This object stands out from the rest of our comet fly-bys. It’s fast, large, and coming oddly close to the inner solar system. So let's dive into it and its (short) history.
An Interstellar Discovery
On July 1st, 2025, NASA’s ATLAS (Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System) telescope in Rio Hurtado, Chile, reported a comet from interstellar space. It was coming from the direction of the constellation Sagittarius. After the discovery, NASA found reports of a similar object dating back to June 14th from 4 different telescopes and observatories, and many other telescopes have had reports of the object. This discovery raised suspicions in the space community and garnered attention from many organizations. Luckily, NASA soon found out that it posed no threat to Earth, but something was odd about it.
Huh…That’s Odd
After lots of observations and research from many telescopes and observatories on 3I/ATLAS, NASA and other organizations found something odd about this interstellar visitor. The comet had a unique orbit that was not bound by our sun. It also seemed to be fairly large, being 20km (12.4 mi) long. The object was also reported to be going about 245,000 km/hr (152235.94 mph), making it the fastest object ever recorded in the solar system. It was almost like a group of aliens trying to move quickly through space. And going back to its trajectory, it seems like it came from the same direction as the WOW! signal (a radio signal discovered in 1977, which seemed like a message from alien life). But the most interesting characteristic about this comet is that it is getting extremely close to Venus, Mars, and Jupiter, even with the chances of that happening being less than 0.005%. It seemed almost as if it were trying to find planets with life.
So, Is It An Alien?
This discovery may have some worried, making them put on their tin-foil hats, or it may have some excited for an alien interaction. But there’s some bad news, 3I/ATLAS is probably not aliens. Estimates from NASA say that the object is simply a big rock that is coincidentally going close to a few of the planets. It is highly unlikely that out of the millions of possible life-bearing planets, aliens decided to look at ours. This doesn’t mean that we as a species are not important; we have tried to find extraterrestrial life out there for 75 years. And it might not come on this comet, but it’s out there, waiting for us.
Credits
Thomas Mulligan — https://www.youtube.com/shorts/PkjlCmUPT_s
New York Times — https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/07/science/mars-interstellar-comet-3i-atlas.html
NASA — https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/comets/3i-atlas/
