Extraterrestrial

Avi Loeb: latest interstellar visitor may be evidence of intelligence

By T.K. Randall
July 20, 2025

Image: Avi Loeb
Credit: Christopher Michel / CC BY-SA 4.0 (adapted) Dubbed 3I/ATLAS, this mysterious cosmic interloper was revealed on July 1st following its discovery by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) - a robotic astronomical survey which uses multiple telescopes to scan the night sky for small near-Earth objects.

Measuring 12 miles across, the object is heading toward the inner solar system at 152,000 mph.

While it might seem as though its arrival is little more than random chance, Prof Avi Loeb - who has long argued that interstellar objects such as this could be under intelligent control - maintains that its presence here is anything but random.

In a new paper in which he calculates how many objects of this size there are likely to be in the Milky Way galaxy, he claims that 3I/ATLAS is, in fact, significantly rarer than generally believed.

"It's not like these objects are floating around in all directions, this object was aiming to get to the inner solar system," he said."Why was it sent in the direction of the inner solar system?"

Loeb has likened the situation to the Arthur C Clarke novel Rendezvous with Rama which tells the story of a huge spacecraft from an alien civilization that is visited by humans after it is detected passing through our solar system.

That said, he hasn't totally ruled out the possibility that it is simply a comet.

"The good news is that it will come closer to the sun and it will get heated up by sunlight," he said.

"The more it is heated, the more mass it would shed if it were a comet, and the easier it will be for us to tell what this object is."

Source: Mail Online

Tags: Avi Loeb, Alien