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3I/ATLAS Ignores Earth

Avi Loeb Medium

By Avi Loeb Medium
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An image of 3I/ATLAS at its closest approach to Earth on December 19, 2025, featuring a prominent anti-tail jet in the sunward direction, towards the lower left. (Image credit: Dr. Sebastian Voltimer)

Humans are interesting cosmic creatures. More than four centuries ago, we were convinced that the Universe centers on us. Recently, we realized that there are about ten billion houses like ours on the cosmic street of the Milky-Way and most of them formed billions of years before the Earth-Sun system. However, our popular view is that visitors from these houses might show up in our cosmic neighborhood because of their interest in our home. Well, guess what: if you are late to a party and you are not at the center of the room, the party is not about you. Not only are we not at the center of the Universe, we are also not at the center of attention for interstellar visitors.

This blunt message-in-a-bottle was delivered to earthlings on December 19, 2025, by the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS, as it reached its closest distance from Earth, 268.91 million kilometers. 3I/ATLAS did not maneuver or display any unusual activity on that occasion. Its trajectory is aligned to within 5 degrees with the ecliptic plane but it avoided Earth by passing on the other side of the Sun relative to us on October 29, 2025.

Some find this message insulting. But the truth of the matter is that with an interstellar speed of 60 kilometers per second, the journey of 3I/ATLAS through the Milky-Way disk of stars must have taken billions of years. When 3I/ATLAS started its journey, there were no humans on Earth. And besides, among the solar system planets — Jupiter is the center of attention given that its mass is 318 times larger than Earth’s.

Humans arrived late to the local cosmic party, only to witness the last 0.0001 of the Milky-Way history. Given that, we should not be surprised that interstellar visitors — who attended the party for much longer, did not plan to dance with us.

So far, December 19 images of 3I/ATLAS were only released by amateur astronomers. They feature a prominent anti-tail jet pointed at the Sun, ten times longer than it is wide, with a length of a million kilometers. We have never witnessed such a long, tightly collimated anti-tail. To fully understand the nature of 3I/ATLAS, we must explain this anomaly as well as the others listed here.

In the coming months, imaging and spectroscopic data will help us figure out the mysterious properties of 3I/ATLAS by the time it gets closest to Jupiter on March 16, 2026. The forecasted perijove distance of 53.6 million kilometers is close to Jupiter’s Hill radius, 53.5 million kilometers (as discussed here), where Jupiter’s gravity dominates over the Sun’s tide. Given that Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system, it would be interesting to monitor 3I/ATLAS with the Juno spacecraft for any unusual activity as it passes by Jupiter’s Lagrange points.

I delivered the above sentiments in seven television interviews during the perigee day of 3I/ATLAS. After the last interview, I received the following email from the brilliant Gadi Schwartz at NBC News:

“Speaking to you is always the highlight of our day! And the amount of little future astronomers you have inspired is incalculable!!!

Here’s the latest AI imposter I spotted! (CHATgpt tells me deepfakes should be taken as are the highest form of flattery!)”

Indeed, fake content manufactured by artificial intelligence will be the biggest nemesis of science for years to come. My hope lies with natural intelligence.

To gain respect near the top of the food chain in the Milky Way galaxy, we must endeavor to interstellar space. During his first day in office, the new NASA administrator, Jared Isaacman, commented here on the importance of extending our space exploration plans beyond the Moon and Mars.

Also, during his annual televised news conference on December 19, 2025, accessible here, Russian president Vladimir Putin was asked by a reporter about3I/ATLAS. Here is the transcript of the exchange:

“Journalist: I have a question about the unusual object 3I Atlas which is currently approaching us. If the predictions are to be believed today, December 19th, either a spacecraft with an engine or just a comet will approach Earth. My question is this, what do intelligence services report to you? Are there really signs of artificial origin? As funny as it may sound, there are indeed many theories and speculations. We, at Tyumen — the oil capital of Russia, are ready to welcome any guests but if they are from space we would like to prepare. Secondly is the date of our meeting today related to this forecast since it’s the first time we are summing up the year on a Friday.

Putin: Is your name Christina? I’ll tell you, but it must remain exclusively between us. This is classified information. It’s our secret weapon, but we will only use it in the most extreme case because we are against deploying weapons in space. Seriously though, it’s a comet. Our scientists are aware of what is happening. Moreover, this is a comet from another star, so it behaves differently from comets of our galactic origin. It has a different shell and as it approaches closer to the Sun, slightly different processes occur on its surface, including in the field tail of this rocket. Things look different there, but it’s quite large. I think somewhere between 2 to 6 kilometers. Look, the moon is 400,000 kilometers away from us. And the object you are talking about is hundreds of millions of kilometers away. I don’t think it poses any threat to us. We’ll let it go to Jupiter. And at the beginning of next year, the comet will leave the solar system.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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(Image Credit: Chris Michel, National Academy of Sciences, 2023)

Avi Loeb is the head of the Galileo Project, founding director of Harvard University’s — Black Hole Initiative, director of the Institute for Theory and Computation at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and the former chair of the astronomy department at Harvard University (2011–2020). He is a former member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and a former chair of the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Academies. He is the bestselling author of “Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth” and a co-author of the textbook “Life in the Cosmos”, both published in 2021. The paperback edition of his new book, titled “Interstellar”, was published in August 2024.

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