3I/ATLAS – Cosmic Log

How the buzz over an ‘alien’ interstellar comet went viral

Is an interstellar spacecraft zooming through our solar system? That’s the big question for fans of unidentified flying objects — and for a researcher at the University of Washington who analyzed the speculation over the interstellar comet known as 3I/ATLAS.

Mert Bayar, a postdoctoral scholar at the UW Center for an Informed Public, focused on 3I/ATLAS to track how social-media influencers use over-the-top speculation to fill in information gaps.

“I’ve written previously on how expert opinions can fuel conspiracy theorizing through elite-driven rumoring and amplification,” Bayar explained in an email. “My academic interest in philosophy, epistemology and the politics of conspiracy theories, plus a personal interest in space-related conspiracy theories, led me to look more closely at 3I/ATLAS.”

His analysis, published this week, is titled “Alien of the Gaps: How 3I/ATLAS Was Turned into a Spaceship Online.” The title takes inspiration from a concept known as “God of the Gaps,” which traces how thinkers through the ages explained phenomena they couldn’t fully understand by appealing to the influence of higher powers.

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Scientists find a third interstellar object — and it’s a comet

Astronomers say they’ve spotted the third interstellar object to be detected flying through our solar system. The object — initially known as A11pl3Z and now designated 3I/ATLAS — was discovered on July 1 by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, or ATLAS.

Early indications are that the 3I/ATLAS is behaving like a comet, and that it may be up to 12 miles (20 kilometers) wide. But don’t panic: This object has no chance of hitting Earth.

3I/ATLAS is currently about 416 million miles from the sun and zooming across the solar system at 130,000 mph. Its projected path is being determined more precisely through follow-up observations and analysis, including a review of “precovery” telescope images that recorded the object’s position but went unnoticed until the ATLAS astronomers reported their find.

The analysis suggests the object will have a close encounter with Mars and swing past the sun in October. Earth will be on the other side of the sun, which rules out making up-close observations or sending a probe. David Rankin, an astronomer with the Catalina Sky Survey, said in a series of Bluesky postings that the path of 3I/ATLAS through the solar system appears to have the highest eccentricity ever found.