Astronomer Warns Mysterious Interstellar Object Coming Towards Earth ‘May Come to Save — or Destroy Us’

United States: Avi Loeb, a Harvard astronomer known for his bold ideas about space, says a newly detected interstellar object may not be natural — and could even be engineered.

The object, named 31/ATLAS, was spotted by the Deep Random Survey telescope in Chile. It’s huge — about 12 miles (20 kilometers) across — and Loeb believes it’s unusual enough to warrant closer attention.

“The brightness tells us it’s massive, but there isn’t enough rocky material drifting between the stars to send something this big into our solar system every decade,” Loeb told CNN. “It would normally take 10,000 years for that much mass to make its way here.”

When 31/ATLAS reaches its closest point to Earth, our planet will be on the opposite side of the Sun. That means we won’t actually see it — but Loeb thinks that’s exactly when it could change direction, according to The Independent.

“We can’t observe it directly, but that’s the perfect moment for it to maneuver,” he said. “We just need to watch.”

Loeb isn’t outright declaring it alien technology, but he says it doesn’t behave like a typical comet. Most comets have a glowing tail trailing behind them. Images from the Hubble Space Telescope show 31/ATLAS glowing in front of its movement — a phenomenon that astronomers have never observed before.

“A comet wouldn’t glow in front of itself,” Loeb noted.

He believes we should investigate any interstellar visitor that enters our solar system — just to be sure it’s not a threat. “31/ATLAS could come to save us or destroy us,” he warned. “We’d better be ready for both and check if these objects are really just rocks,” as per The Independent.

This is only the third interstellar object scientists have ever confirmed. Loeb has made similar arguments before:

• In 2017, the first known interstellar object, Oumuamua, was discovered. Loeb suggested it could be a thin craft using a “light sail” to travel on solar energy.
• In 2021, he published a paper that further explored this idea.
• In 2023, he led a team to recover a meteor from the Pacific Ocean, claiming it contained metal alloys unlike anything in our solar system — though many scientists doubted his findings.

Other researchers later explained Oumuamua’s unusual behavior as a natural phenomenon. They believe that sunlight warmed the object, releasing hydrogen from within, which gave it a small push without requiring any alien technology.

Still, Loeb insists that strange interstellar objects deserve careful study — just in case they turn out to be something far more advanced than a lump of rock and ice.