NASA’s High-Stakes Interstellar Showdown Could Validate or Demolish Avi Loeb’s 3I/ATLAS Theories

The comet itself presents a unique observational opportunity that explains why NASA has marshaled so many assets to track it. Discovered July 1 by the NASA-funded ATLAS observatory, 3I/ATLAS entered our solar system from interstellar space and flew within 19 million miles of Mars in early October before continuing its trajectory that will bring it no closer than 170 million miles to Earth. That distance eliminates any planetary defense concerns, but the object’s interstellar origin makes it scientifically invaluable.

NASA’s distributed network of spacecraft and ground observatories has monitored 3I/ATLAS almost continuously throughout its passage, collecting data from multiple angles with complementary instruments—a surveillance capability no other nation possesses and one that should provide comprehensive answers to the questions Loeb has raised.

Those twelve anomalies Loeb has catalogued range from unexpected brightness fluctuations to non-gravitational acceleration signatures to thermal behavior inconsistent with typical comet outgassing. Each anomaly, viewed individually, might permit natural explanations involving unusual composition, asymmetric sublimation, or fragmentation events.