{"id":9000,"date":"2026-02-25T17:06:20","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T17:06:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/?p=9000"},"modified":"2026-02-25T17:12:49","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T17:12:49","slug":"3i-atlas-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/3i-atlas-story\/","title":{"rendered":"A Comet Sparking Internet Hysteria: The 3I\/ATLAS Story"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Comet 3I\/ATLAS created an enormous amount of online speculation last year.#<\/p>\n<p>Now it is safely making its way out of the solar system, I thought I&#8217;d pick apart what went on here to separate the hype from the fact.<\/p>\n<p><strong>July 1, 2025<\/strong>: 3I\/ATLAS was discovered by the ATLAS telescope in Chile.<\/p>\n<p>The path of this comet was very interesting as it looked like it wasn&#8217;t in a usual comet orbit around the Sun.<br \/>\nIt was approaching us from interstellar space, so it is a recent visitor to the Solar system and has never been close to our Sun.<\/p>\n<p>It was predicted to pass through our solar system before receding back into deep space.<br \/>\nThe comet was moving too fast for the Sun&#8217;s gravitational field to capture it.<\/p>\n<p>The diagram below shows the path of the comet through our solar system.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-content\/uploads\/Comet-3I-Path-2025.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-9014 alignnone\" src=\"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-content\/uploads\/Comet-3I-Path-2025-1024x599.jpg\" alt=\"Comet 3I Path\" width=\"605\" height=\"354\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-content\/uploads\/Comet-3I-Path-2025-1024x599.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-content\/uploads\/Comet-3I-Path-2025-300x176.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-content\/uploads\/Comet-3I-Path-2025-768x449.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-content\/uploads\/Comet-3I-Path-2025-1536x899.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-content\/uploads\/Comet-3I-Path-2025-210x123.jpg 210w, https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-content\/uploads\/Comet-3I-Path-2025-1960x1147.jpg 1960w, https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-content\/uploads\/Comet-3I-Path-2025-600x351.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-content\/uploads\/Comet-3I-Path-2025.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 605px) 100vw, 605px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>It passed inside Jupiter&#8217;s orbit at the bottom of the diagram and came closest to the Sun (Perihelion) just inside Mars&#8217; orbit, never to return following a hyperbolic trajectory.<\/p>\n<p>This wasn&#8217;t the first solar system interloper, as there had been two others.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>1I\/Oumuamua<\/strong> \u2014 discovered in 2017, the first known interstellar object detected passing through our solar system.<br \/>\nBrightness variations as the solid object rotated led astronomers to believe the object was highly elongated.<br \/>\nThis object showed no cometary activity, so it was likely made of rock.<\/li>\n<li><strong>2I\/Borisov<\/strong> \u2014 discovered in 2019, the first clearly active <strong>interstellar comet<\/strong>, as a classic comet coma and tail were observed.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Together with <strong>3I\/ATLAS<\/strong>, these are the only confirmed interstellar objects observed to date.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Early-Mid July 2025<\/strong>: Initial observations confirmed it was a comet with cometary features (coma and tail).<br \/>\nHowever, Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb began speculating, wrongly, that it could potentially be extraterrestrial technology.<\/p>\n<p><strong>September 2025<\/strong>: The comet was still a reasonable distance from the Sun and hadn&#8217;t developed that charactersistic tail we associate with comets.<br \/>\nClaims intensified. Loeb published writings suggesting that if the comet didn&#8217;t show a tail, it could be an artificial object &#8220;sent towards the inner solar system by design.&#8221; He suggested it might use a &#8220;reverse Solar Oberth manoeuvre&#8221; so it will become bound to the Sun and potentially reach Earth by November-December 2025, with &#8220;potentially dire consequences for humanity.&#8221;<br \/>\nHe certainly knows how to generate internet traffic (and online earnings), so he is a very clever man. But still WRONG!!!<\/p>\n<p>The media certainly did not help matters with articles titled as shown below.<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-content\/uploads\/AI-Sun-Article-20250817_113403-Crop.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-9015 alignnone\" src=\"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-content\/uploads\/AI-Sun-Article-20250817_113403-Crop-596x1024.jpg\" alt=\"AI Sun Article 20250817 113403 Crop\" width=\"217\" height=\"373\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-content\/uploads\/AI-Sun-Article-20250817_113403-Crop-596x1024.jpg 596w, https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-content\/uploads\/AI-Sun-Article-20250817_113403-Crop-175x300.jpg 175w, https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-content\/uploads\/AI-Sun-Article-20250817_113403-Crop-122x210.jpg 122w, https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-content\/uploads\/AI-Sun-Article-20250817_113403-Crop.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 217px) 100vw, 217px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>October 22-27, 2025<\/strong>: A month later, we reached the peak of online hysteria. Social media exploded with alien spacecraft theories about Comet I3.<br \/>\nOn October 24, claims circulated about it being a &#8220;black swan event&#8221; or &#8220;Trojan horse&#8221;, whatever those are meant to be.<br \/>\nA viral post from an account claiming to be &#8220;US Homeland Security News&#8221; falsely stated that Dr Aris Thorne confirmed it was made of &#8220;artificial composite material.&#8221;<br \/>\nWhoever he might be. \ud83e\udd37\u200d\u2642\ufe0f Of course, no change was seen in the path of the comet, but that didn&#8217;t stop things getting even more out of hand.<\/p>\n<p>The comet started to develop a dusty head and tail, typical of a comet.<br \/>\nComet tails generally point away from the Sun, but one or more of the &#8220;tails&#8221; were not pointing away from the Sun.<br \/>\n&#8220;It&#8217;s a rocket engine kicked in to slow it down to get it into position&#8221; they said.<\/p>\n<p>Thinking about what went on here. This icy comet has been in deep frozen space for millennia.<br \/>\nIt was approaching the Sun, and the core was heating up.<br \/>\nThis heating causes the solid to turn directly into gas, a process called sublimation.<br \/>\nThe side facing the Sun will heat up more, so there will be a lot more activity on that side.<br \/>\nTherefore, some of that ejected dust and gas, if exploding out from that side, will initially be thrown out towards the Sun.<br \/>\nAfter reaching a certain distance, the solar wind will eventually win, forcing the comet&#8217;s gas and dust to change direction and form a tail on the opposite side from the Sun.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;\"><strong>October 29, 2025<\/strong>: As predicted, the comet reached its closest approach to the Sun, just inside Mars&#8217; orbit.<\/span><br \/>\nThey then started to say that &#8220;Comet 3I has now started to examine Mars&#8221;.<br \/>\nCan you see a pattern here? One theory falls flat.<br \/>\n3I didn&#8217;t slow down and collide with Earth, so they replace that with another incorrect scenario to keep folks interested.<\/p>\n<p>By this time, the motion of the comet and the Earth, going around in its orbit, meant that they were now on opposite sides of the Sun.<br \/>\nThe comet was therefore hidden from Earth&#8217;s view behind the Sun during this critical period.<br \/>\nOf course, this was another thing that fuelled even more speculation.<br \/>\nThey now started saying, &#8220;It&#8217;s purposely hiding behind the Sun, so we can&#8217;t keep an eye on what it&#8217;s doing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In late October, it began to emerge from behind the Sun and out of the twilight in the morning sky.<br \/>\nIt was now fading as it made its way out along the same path we had seen at the beginning of its journey.<br \/>\nWhatever it was doing had not changed its speed or direction in all that time.<\/p>\n<p><strong>November-December 2025<\/strong>: NASA and other scientists firmly debunked the claims.<br \/>\nStudies showed the comet behaves exactly like a natural comet with normal outgassing, composition, and movement.<br \/>\nRadio telescopes searching for alien signals from the comet detected nothing.<\/p>\n<p>I managed to capture an image of the comet on the 30th of November.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-content\/uploads\/3I-ATLAS-20251130-Autosave001.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-9016 alignnone\" src=\"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-content\/uploads\/3I-ATLAS-20251130-Autosave001-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"3I ATLAS 20251130 Autosave001\" width=\"429\" height=\"241\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-content\/uploads\/3I-ATLAS-20251130-Autosave001-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-content\/uploads\/3I-ATLAS-20251130-Autosave001-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-content\/uploads\/3I-ATLAS-20251130-Autosave001-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-content\/uploads\/3I-ATLAS-20251130-Autosave001-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-content\/uploads\/3I-ATLAS-20251130-Autosave001-210x118.jpg 210w, https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-content\/uploads\/3I-ATLAS-20251130-Autosave001-1960x1103.jpg 1960w, https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-content\/uploads\/3I-ATLAS-20251130-Autosave001-600x338.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-content\/uploads\/3I-ATLAS-20251130-Autosave001.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 429px) 100vw, 429px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I was very excited to capture this one, and it certainly looks like every other comet to me.<\/p>\n<p>Things have gone very quiet among the conspiracy theorists now, and they have fallen back onto something like &#8220;3I has completed its mission and is now on its way home&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Anyone who says otherwise is either an idiot, following a useless trend, or a charlatan, spreading misinformation for monetary gain.<\/p>\n<p>But they are very clever as they&#8217;ve probably made a lot of money spreading their rubbish.<br \/>\nI do not try and debunk their pathetic theories online, as doing so only gives them more views and comments.<br \/>\nThis will only add to their counts, fuelling the algorithms in social media, so their tripe, (I&#8217;ve used a more polite word than I wanted to), spreads even further.<\/p>\n<p>The scientific consensus throughout has been clear:<br \/>\n3I\/ATLAS is simply a comet, albeit a fascinating interstellar visitor.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But who believes scientists anyway?&#8221;, they say.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You&#8217;re all in on it and covering things up.&#8221;<br \/>\nEven members of my family accuse me of that at times.<br \/>\nBut believe me, if I did manage to spot something that &#8220;was just not right&#8221;, I&#8217;d soon be jumping up and down and trying to get the facts out there to spread the word.<\/p>\n<p>Dave<\/p>\n<p>I think I have all the facts correct here, but happy to hear from someone if I&#8217;ve got something wrong.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Comet 3I\/ATLAS created an enormous amount of online speculation last year.# Now it is safely making its way out of the solar system, I thought I&#8217;d pick apart what went on here to separate the hype from the fact. July 1, 2025: 3I\/ATLAS was discovered by the ATLAS telescope in Chile. The path of this [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"slim_seo":{"title":"A Comet Sparking Internet Hysteria: The 3I\/ATLAS Story - Star-Gazing","description":"Comet 3I\/ATLAS created an enormous amount of online speculation last year.# Now it is safely making its way out of the solar system, I thought I'd pick apart wh"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9000"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9000\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9019,"href":"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9000\/revisions\/9019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}