Reading: NASA responds to claim that mystery space object is potential alien spacecraft

NASA responds to claim that mystery space object is potential alien spacecraft

Last updated: 2025/09/18 at 8:34 PM

News Room Published 18 September 2025

In July, something strange entered our solar system. The find led to a lot of excitement in the scientific community as it was identified to be only the third interstellar object that we know of to visit, providing us with an image of what the rest of the universe is like. However, the find has also led to claims that it is a ‘craft’ sent by aliens. Now Nasa has responded to these claims – so what did they say? (Picture: NASA, ESA, David Jewitt (UCLA); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI))

An image of the interstellar invader Comet 3I/ATLAS as seen by Hubble (Image credit: NASA/ ESA/Hubble) — The interstellar object known as 3I/ATLAS was spotted moving through the Solar System at nearly twice the velocity of previous interstellar visitors ‘Oumuamua and Comet Borisov. It was confirmed to be a comet, coming with its own dusty coma, and is far larger than the other two visitors – with an estimated nucleus (just the rocky part, not the coma) of 3.5 miles (Picture: NASA/ ESA/Hubble)

This image shows the observation of comet 3I/ATLAS when it was discovered on July 1, 2025. The NASA-funded ATLAS survey telescope in Chile first reported that the comet originated from interstellar space. ATLAS/University of Hawaii/NASA The NASA-funded ATLAS (Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System) survey telescope in Rio Hurtado, Chile, first reported observations to the Minor Planet Center of comet 3I/ATLAS on July 1, 2025. Since the first report, observations made before the discovery were gathered from the archives of three different ATLAS telescopes around the world and Caltechâ€™s Zwicky Transient Facility at the Palomar Observatory in San Diego County, California. These â€œpre-discoveryâ€ observations extend back to June 14. — It excited researchers since it could tell us more about the universe and may be older than any of the known bodies in our Solar System. It was first spotted on July 1, 2025, by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) telescope in Río Hurtado, Chile and will make its closest approach to Earth in late October (Picture: Nasa)

ESO???s Very Large Telescope (VLT) has obtained new images of 3I/ATLAS, an interstellar object discovered last week. Identified as a comet, 3I/ATLAS is only the third visitor from outside the Solar System ever found, after 1I/??Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov. Its highly eccentric hyperbolic orbit, unlike that of objects in the Solar System, gave away its interstellar origin.?? In this image, several VLT observations have been overlaid, showing the comet as a series of dots that move towards the right of the image over the course of about 13 minutes on the night of 3 July 2025. The data were obtained with the FORS2 instrument, and are available in the ESO archive.?? Links?? Timelapse of the observations Deep stacked image of all observations — However, the celestial visitor has also sparked claims that aliens are somehow involved. Israeli-American theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and astronomer Dr Avi Loeb suggested that it may be an interstellar probe sent by an intelligent species. He suggests that the comet may be on its way to scope out the Earth to see if there is any intelligent life in this solar system, and if it was a spacecraft it would be able to make a maneuver and reach Earth by November or December (Picture: ESO/O. Hainaut)

This animation shows the observations of comet 3I/ATLAS when it was discovered on July 1, 2025. The NASA-funded ATLAS survey telescope in Chile first reported that the comet originated from interstellar space. Credit: ATLAS/University of Hawaii/NASA — In a blogpost, Dr Loeb wrote: ‘If future data will indicate the absence of a cometary tail, we will be faced with the tantalizing possibility that it did not inherit a random velocity in interstellar space but instead was sent towards the inner solar system by design. The consequences, should the hypothesis turn out to be correct, could potentially be dire for humanity, and would possibly require defensive measures to be undertaken, though these might prove futile’ (Picture: ATLAS/University of Hawaii/NASA)

Researchers used NASA's James Webb Space Telescope to observe 3I/ATLAS on Aug. 6. (Image credit: NASA/James Webb Space Telescope) — But there is not a lot of scientific basis for the claim. Since it looks like a comet, Nasa believes that it is just a comet. Speaking to The Guardian, Dr Tom Statler, Nasa’s lead scientist for solar system small bodies, said: ‘It looks like a comet. It does comet things. It very, very strongly resembles, in just about every way, the comets that we know. It has some interesting properties that are a little bit different from our solar system comets, but it behaves like a comet. And so the evidence is overwhelmingly pointing to this object being a natural body. It’s a comet’ (Picture: NASA/James Webb Space Telescope)

This diagram provided by NASA/JPL-Caltech shows the trajectory of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS as it passes through the solar system. (NASA/JPL-Caltech via AP) — Essentially, if it looks like a comet, it’s probably just a comet. Dr Statler said the object would not come closer to Earth than about 170 million miles due to the positions of the planets over the next few months. But it will make close passes with Mars, Jupiter and Venus. Dr Loeb did acknowledge in his blog post that ‘the simplest hypothesis is that 3I/ATLAS is a comet’ and was just raising alternative possibilities as an exercise in challenging preconceived ideas (Picture: AP)

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