- 4 hours ago
NASA has identified a newly discovered comet that appears to be closely related to the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS, suggesting a possible shared origin. The comet is traveling at an extraordinary speed through the solar system, drawing the attention of astronomers monitoring its trajectory. While its approach has sparked interest, scientists emphasize that the object poses no known threat to Earth at this time.
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00:00A mysterious space visitor has recently passed its closest approach to Earth,
00:05flying by at a distance of 64 million miles.
00:09It might be something totally natural and born on the outskirts of the solar system.
00:14Or some unknown civilization could be examining us from above right at this moment.
00:21This new object looks a lot like another strange wanderer called Three-Eye Atlas.
00:26And you'll understand why we say strange pretty soon.
00:30So, could both of them come from the same place outside our solar system?
00:36What we do know is that this new object is relatively close to us, in space terms, of course.
00:42And scientists are now studying it closely.
00:45They first spotted it inside our solar system.
00:48And people are paying attention because it showed up not long after Three-Eye Atlas passed near our sun.
00:54On November 2, 2025, astronomer Gennady Borisov, the same person who discovered interstellar comet 2I Borisov in 2019,
01:06found this new object.
01:08It's now got its official name and is listed in NASA's and the Minor Planet Center's databases.
01:15C-2025 V1 has some unusual features.
01:19Its orbit is tilted 113 degrees, which means it's moving almost up and over the regular path that planets take.
01:28Even more bizarre, its orbital plane is almost at a right angle to the path of Three-Eye Atlas.
01:35Plus, it doesn't have a clear comet tail, which is odd.
01:39Right now, its orbit has an eccentricity of 1.0095.
01:46And let me break it down in human language.
01:48If that number was well above 1, it would mean the object definitely came from outside the solar system.
01:55But because it's only just a bit above 1,
01:58the most likely explanation is that C-2025 V1 came from the Oort cloud.
02:05That's a giant, faraway shell of icy objects that surrounds the solar system.
02:11Now, scientists check this by basically rewinding the object's path,
02:16sending it all the way back to about 1,000 AU.
02:20That's 1,000 times farther than the Earth is from the Sun.
02:23At that huge distance, the planets can't mess with its motion anymore.
02:28When they redo the orbit from that point, its eccentricity,
02:33the number that tells you if it's from outside the solar system,
02:37usually drops below 1, which means it's still part of our solar system.
02:41But at the same time, even a tiny push from Jupiter while passing by
02:47could make even a normal Oort cloud comet look like it has an eccentricity slightly above 1.
02:53And on top of that, small blasts of gas coming off the comet's surface
02:59can also change the numbers a little.
03:01So, to put it simply, it probably isn't interstellar.
03:06It just looks that way because of small pushes and gas bursts.
03:11C-2025 V1 is still exciting, even if it comes from the Oort cloud,
03:16because studying it gives us a chance to analyze the material from that distant region
03:21and learn how our solar system formed and evolved.
03:25Now, let's get back to the mystery of 3i Atlas.
03:28Before anything else, let's explain what 3i Atlas actually is.
03:33It's most likely a comet, basically a huge, dirty snowball flying through space.
03:39You can't see it with your own eyes or with a regular telescope.
03:42But there's good news!
03:44A powerful telescope in Italy is streaming it live for free.
03:48So, anyone can actually watch this mysterious object as it passes by.
03:54Scientists think this comet weighs about 33 billion tons.
03:58That number is hard to imagine, so here are a few comparisons.
04:02The Eiffel Tower weighs around 10,000 tons.
04:05So, 33 billion tons is the same as a whopping 3.3 million Eiffel Towers.
04:11And if you decide to compare the space visitor to buildings,
04:1633 billion tons is about the same as the weight of several huge city areas
04:21made entirely of steel and concrete.
04:23But even all that size isn't the wildest part.
04:27Some experts think this object might be a piece of unknown technology from outside our galaxy.
04:33And they're not saying this just for fun.
04:36There are real reasons behind the theory.
04:38Three-Eye Atlas was first noticed in July by NASA's Asteroid Terrestrial Impact Last Alert System, or ATLAS.
04:49Shortly after, NASA confirmed that the object wasn't from our solar system at all.
04:54It's an interstellar object, only the third ever discovered.
04:58The first one was Oumuamua in 2017, which looked long and flat and didn't behave like a normal rock.
05:06The second was comet B.I. Borisov in 2019.
05:11Now we have 3.I. Atlas, and it is enormous compared with the other two.
05:16Its nucleus is up to 3.5 miles wide, while Oumuamua was only about a quarter mile long,
05:24and Borisov was around a half mile across.
05:27Besides being huge, 3.I. Atlas is unusual in several other ways.
05:32As it moves through the solar system, it's releasing massive amounts of carbon dioxide and gas.
05:39This suggests that 3.I. Atlas is 3 to 5 orders of magnitude,
05:44which means 1,000 to 100,000 times more massive than the other two known interstellar visitors.
05:51Such an enormous difference is a real scientific mystery.
05:55It's also traveling incredibly fast, about 150,000 miles per hour, which is almost 200 times the speed of sound.
06:04And unlike objects in our solar system, which followed curved paths because of gravity,
06:113.I. Atlas is moving on a nearly straight line.
06:14That alone makes it stand out.
06:17These odd behaviors have led some researchers to consider a pretty unexpected idea.
06:233.I. Atlas might be a probe sent by another civilization, possibly to study Earth.
06:30According to this theory, the object could be a sign of some kind of intelligence from beyond our solar system.
06:36Why do they think this?
06:38Well, because the object's movement doesn't match what you'd expect from something controlled only by gravity.
06:45It also passes close to Venus, Mars, and Jupiter.
06:49And these are the planets that might be especially interesting for an outside civilization to observe.
06:56Another very unusual feature of 3.I. Atlas's path is that its orbit is tilted only a little compared to
07:04the plane of the solar system,
07:06about 5 degrees, and it moves in the opposite direction to most planets.
07:11This feature might allow the object, or its creators, to take extremely precise measurements of planets,
07:18things like their orbits and sizes, to plan a perfect flight route through the solar system.
07:24And if 3.I. Atlas suddenly changes direction at some point,
07:28that could mean it's using a built-in engine instead of simply drifting through space.
07:33Now, new photos have also shown that 3.I. Atlas has at least 7 jets blasting material into space,
07:42some shooting in totally opposite directions.
07:44Now, if this thing is just a normal comet,
07:48it would have had to lose a huge amount of its original mass when it passed near the Sun.
07:53Way more than just 10-20%.
07:55Only some of that material would actually push the object in one direction.
08:00So, the total amount blown off would need to be massive.
08:04If that's what happened, then there should be now a giant cloud of gas and dust around 3.I. Atlas.
08:12And if that cloud exists, it'll be pretty easy to figure out what the comet is made of.
08:17The James Webb Space Telescope will check this
08:20when 3.I. Atlas gets closest to Earth on December 19, 2025.
08:26But if 3.I. Atlas is not a normal comet, and is actually some kind of technology,
08:33it wouldn't need to lose that much material.
08:36Engines built by an advanced civilization could give it a boost while using way less gas,
08:41because they shoot it out way faster.
08:44Faster exhaust gives more push with less fuel,
08:47so a technological object wouldn't need to blast away big chunks of itself the way a natural comet would.
08:54So, to sum it up, there's still a big mystery around 3.I. Atlas.
08:59Could it really be a technological mothership that release small probes into the inner solar system?
09:06But C-2025 V1 doesn't fit that idea, unless one of the objects used some kind of engine.
09:14The closest their orbits ever come is about 46 million miles,
09:19and the two objects themselves were never closer to each other than about 140 million miles.
09:25The tiny, non-gravitational push, detected in 3.I. Atlas,
09:30is nowhere near strong enough to close this gap.
09:33So, C-2025 V1 is almost certainly not one of the many probes people imagine 3.I. Atlas might have
09:42released.
09:43A large space probe is nearing the sun.
09:46The terrifying heat of the star begins to melt the shell of the spacecraft.
09:51Another moment, and the probe bursts into flames.
09:54In no time, it disintegrates in a powerful explosion.
09:58Ah, what a sad ending.
10:00If it were true, it was not a probe.
10:02It was a comet known as 3.I. Atlas.
10:05And despite everything people say, it's still intact and thriving.
10:10The thing is, there is a rumor online saying that comet 3.I. Atlas exploded when it got closest to
10:17the sun.
10:18But astronomers say this is not true.
10:21There was no explosion.
10:23And the comet's nucleus still looks whole and undamaged.
10:26Which is kind of surprising, since comets that pass very close to the sun usually go through some serious changes.
10:33You see, comets are made of a mix of ice, dust, and rocky material.
10:38Which is why they're often called dirty snowballs.
10:42So, when they come close to the sun, the intense heat from our star makes their ice turn into gas.
10:48This new gas can burst out in huge jets, form a cloud around the comet called a coma, and or
10:54be pushed away into a long tail.
10:57Sunlight makes all of these parts shine more brightly.
11:00And even people with small or simple telescopes can study the comet if the viewing conditions are good.
11:06But aside from being a breathtaking view, such a close approach can break off pieces of a comet or even
11:13tear its whole nucleus apart.
11:15Now, it's true that some comets survive this process.
11:19But many, especially small ones, or comets entering the inner solar system for the first time, break into pieces or
11:26disappear completely.
11:28Well, 3i Atlas acted differently.
11:31So there.
11:32It reached its closest point to the sun on October 29, 2025.
11:37This point is called the Perhelion.
11:39At that moment, the comet was about 130 million miles from the sun.
11:43That's about one and a half times the distance between the sun and our planet.
11:48The comet was also on the opposite side of the sun from Earth.
11:52So, the star was blocking it from our view, and we couldn't see the comet.
11:56Anyway, even though 3i Atlas could hypothetically break apart or release lots of fragments, it didn't.
12:04The nucleus stayed intact.
12:05And this made the comet's behavior even more unusual and interesting to scientists.
12:10They looked closely at the new photos and said everything looked normal.
12:15Now, interestingly, the day before, some people thought the comet had broken into pieces after it came out from behind
12:23the far side of the sun.
12:24This idea became popular after a blog post said the comet had lost a lot of mass.
12:30So, to make this claim, the blog used photos taken on November 9 by two small telescopes in Spain.
12:37The pictures show jets of gas coming out of the comet.
12:41The scientists used this to estimate how much material was coming off the comet, claiming that it should have broken
12:47into at least 16 pieces.
12:49However, many scientists have questioned this statement.
12:53Most researchers say there's no proof that the comet exploded.
12:56One scientist who studies the comet says that all the images he had seen showed a completely normal, healthy comet.
13:04There's no sign that the main body of the comet has broken apart.
13:08Still, now that the comet is coming back into view, astronomers are watching it very carefully.
13:14They want to learn more about the comet's materials and structure.
13:17Right now, if you look at it from Earth, the comet seems to be slowly moving higher in the eastern
13:23sky.
13:24If the weather is good, people in many parts of the northern hemisphere can see it with a small telescope,
13:30like this one with a 6-inch lens.
13:32And many do pay attention to the comet.
13:35Since it was discovered in July, it has become the center of many curious ideas.
13:40Some people are sure that the comet, which comes from outside our solar system and might be more than 7
13:47billion years old,
13:48could be a probe sent by a different civilization.
13:51Now, most astronomers strongly disagree, of course.
13:55They believe the comet is completely natural and comes from another star system, somewhere in the Milky Way.
14:01And this is actually exciting!
14:03Comet 3I Atlas is only the third interstellar comet ever seen, and it is the largest one of its kind.
14:10Before, it was comet 2I Borisov that passed through in 2019, and Oumuamua, a weird elongated object that appeared in
14:202017.
14:21But 3I Atlas, with its up to 3.5-mile nucleus, dwarfs Oumuamua, which was just a quarter-mile long,
14:29and Borisov, which is about three-tenths of a mile across.
14:33Plus, 3I Atlas may be the oldest comet humans have ever observed.
14:39Oumuamua is much younger, around 1 billion years old.
14:42It came from the galaxy's thin disk, where new stars are still being born.
14:47It was the first known object from another star system to pass through our solar system.
14:52Basically, our first interstellar guest.
14:55It was super-stretched out, about 10 times longer than it was wide, unlike anything else we've spotted in space.
15:02As for 2I Borisov, it sits in between, at roughly 1.7 billion years old.
15:09It also came from the thin disk.
15:11It was the first confirmed comet to come from another star system.
15:15And it gave scientists a super-rare peek at what materials beyond our solar system were made of.
15:21Unlike the first interstellar visitor, Oumuamua, which looked more like an asteroid,
15:26Borisov behaved like a classic comet.
15:28It had a bright coma, a temporary fuzzy atmosphere of gas and dust forming around the comet's nucleus as it
15:36approaches the Sun.
15:37Plus, it also had a long tail of dust and gas.
15:41Now, 2I Borisov is speeding away from the Sun and will never return.
15:46But it allowed scientists to take a glimpse into the chemistry and history of distant worlds.
15:51Now, let's get back to Comet 3I Atlas.
15:55It will pass closest to Earth on December 19th.
15:58Until then, scientists will make many more observations.
16:02People will also make many new claims about the comet, that's for sure.
16:06But it's best to be cautious and not believe everything immediately.
16:10By the way, even though you can't see this famous comet with your own eyes or with a regular telescope,
16:16hey, that's good news!
16:17A powerful telescope in Italy is streaming it live for free!
16:22Whoa!
16:22So anyone can actually watch this mysterious object as it passes by.
16:27Scientists think this comet weighs about 33 billion tons.
16:31That's a big number.
16:33How about we make a few comparisons?
16:35The Eiffel Tower weighs around 10,000 tons.
16:38So, 33 billion tons is the same as 3.3 million Eiffel Towers.
16:45And if you decide to compare the space visitor to buildings,
16:49well, 33 billion tons is about the same as the weight of several huge city areas
16:53made entirely of steel and concrete.
16:56Now, 3I Atlas was first noticed in July by NASA's Asteroid Terrestrial Impact Last Alert System.
17:04Which, if you're paying attention, is where they got the nickname Atlas.
17:09Shortly after, NASA confirmed that the object wasn't from our solar system at all.
17:13Now, besides being huge, 3I Atlas is unusual in several other ways.
17:18As it moves through the solar system, it's releasing massive amounts of carbon dioxide and dust.
17:24So, this suggests that 3I Atlas is 3 to 5 orders of magnitude,
17:29which means 1,000 to 100,000 times more massive than the two other known interstellar visitors.
17:36Such an enormous difference is a real scientific mystery.
17:40It's also traveling incredibly fast, about 150,000 miles per hour,
17:45which is almost 200 times the speed of sound.
17:48Hey, that will get you a speeding ticket!
17:51And unlike objects in our solar system, which follow curved paths because of gravity,
17:563I Atlas is moving on a nearly straight line.
17:59That alone makes it stand out.
18:02Now that the comet has moved past the Sun, telescopes on Earth can see it again.
18:07Comet 3I Atlas is important to us because it's only the third interstellar visitor we've ever seen,
18:14and it may be the biggest and oldest one yet.
18:16And it didn't break apart near the Sun like some other comets.
18:20By studying it, scientists can learn what materials exist in other star systems
18:25and better understand how comets, and even planets, form in our galaxy.
18:34Comet 3I Atlas crashes into Earth, and a wave of widespread destruction starts shaking our planet.
18:41Ginormous tsunamis are swallowing coastlines.
18:44Devastating earthquakes are cracking the ground.
18:47Hot debris is igniting massive firestorms.
18:51Thick clouds of dust are blocking the Sun.
18:56Now, that's what could happen if 3I Atlas, a massive comet traveling through the solar system,
19:03collided with our planet.
19:05But can this disaster actually occur?
19:08When will 3I Atlas be the closest to Earth?
19:11Let's figure this out.
19:14First of all, this comet turned out to be way larger than we previously thought.
19:19Its weight is likely a whopping 33 billion tons.
19:23Let's throw in a few comparisons to put it into perspective.
19:26The Eiffel Tower weighs about 10,000 tons.
19:30So, 33 billion tons is roughly the weight of 3.3 million Eiffel Towers.
19:36Impressive!
19:38Next, all the cars on Earth, and we're talking about 1.5 billion vehicles,
19:43each weighing about 1.5 tons,
19:47weigh approximately 2.25 billion tons.
19:50This means that the comet's mass is 15 times greater than the combined weight of literally
19:57all the cars on the planet.
19:59And finally, compared to buildings on Earth,
20:0333 billion tons is equal to several large metropolitan areas made entirely of steel and concrete.
20:10But the whole idea of how big this comet is fades in comparison with an even crazier fact about it.
20:18It could be unknown technology from a different galaxy.
20:21And some experts are somewhat sure about that.
20:25But why?
20:27Three-Eye Atlas was first spotted in July by NASA's Asteroid Terrestrial Impact Last Alert System.
20:34A bit later, the U.S. Space Agency confirmed that the object was an interstellar object,
20:40only the third we have found so far.
20:42Before, it was Comet 2I-Borisov that passed through in 2019,
20:48and Amumuamua, a weird elongated object that appeared in 2017.
20:53But the newest comet with its up to 3.5-mile nucleus dwarfs Amumuamua,
21:00which is just a quarter-mile long,
21:02and Borisov, which is about 0.6 miles across.
21:06By the way, some believe that the comet could be even bigger,
21:10up to almost 7 miles.
21:13But scientists haven't found any proof of that yet.
21:17Besides its size, 3I Atlas is different in other ways too,
21:21which makes some scientists question its origins.
21:25The object is shedding huge amounts of carbon dioxide and dust while zooming towards the sun.
21:30It's most likely the proof that 3I Atlas is more massive than the other two interstellar objects
21:36by 3 to 5 orders of magnitude,
21:40which is basically a serious anomaly.
21:43The comet is also traveling toward the sun incredibly fast.
21:47We're talking about around 130,000 miles per hour,
21:52which is almost 170 times the speed of sound.
21:56Another weird thing is that this interstellar object
21:59is following a straight trajectory,
22:02unlike anything else in the solar system.
22:04Most space bodies move along curved orbits due to the force of gravity.
22:10That made some researchers believe that 3I Atlas
22:13might be a probe sent by another civilization to explore Earth,
22:18possibly with not-so-friendly intentions.
22:21Their theory is that the object could be a technological artifact,
22:25a sign of cosmic intelligence.
22:28You see, the comet moves in a pretty weird way
22:31that doesn't totally line up with just gravity.
22:34Its trajectory also takes it close to Venus, Mars, and Jupiter.
22:39And researchers think that these planets
22:41might be especially interesting for another civilization to pass by.
22:47Another bizarre fact,
22:49the space traveler also spins backward
22:51compared to most stuff in our solar system.
22:54This might be necessary to make it easier for 3I Atlas
22:57to get near Earth without much resistance.
23:01Some scientists think the comet's odd spin and flight path
23:04could help whoever or whatever made it
23:07take super-precise measurements of the planets,
23:09things like their orbits and sizes,
23:12to plan a perfect route through the solar system.
23:16If 3I Atlas suddenly changes direction in a big way,
23:20that might mean it's using some kind of built-in engine
23:23instead of just drifting through space.
23:26There's also another theory that suggests
23:28it could be a piece of unknown tech that's still active.
23:33There's no need to worry, though, at least at the moment.
23:37The comet isn't coming anywhere near us.
23:39NASA says it'll stay around 150 million miles from Earth
23:43when heading toward the Sun.
23:45So the question is,
23:47where do such space visitors come from?
23:51Astronomers have found that the three interstellar objects
23:54we discovered came from totally different parts of the galaxy.
23:58And each of them has its own age and background.
24:023I Atlas turned out to be the oldest,
24:05about 4.6 billion years old,
24:07and it came from the Milky Way's thick disk.
24:10That's a region filled with older stars
24:12that have fewer heavy elements.
24:15One-eye Oumuamua is much younger,
24:18around 1 billion years old.
24:20It came from the galaxy's thin disk,
24:22where new stars are still being born.
24:26Oumuamua,
24:27Hawaiian for a messenger from afar arriving first,
24:31was the first known object from another star system
24:34to pass through our solar system,
24:36basically the first interstellar guest.
24:40It was super stretched out,
24:42about 10 times longer than it was wide,
24:45unlike anything else we've spotted in space.
24:48It also sped up in a way
24:50that couldn't be explained by gravity alone.
24:53Changes in brightness showed
24:55it was tumbling end over end,
24:57instead of spinning smoothly.
24:59At first, scientists were confused,
25:01because the space body didn't have a tail
25:03or a cloud of gas like a normal comet,
25:06even though it was accelerating.
25:09That led to a lot of debate
25:10about what it was made of
25:12and where it came from.
25:14Just like with 3I Atlas,
25:16some people wondered if it could be technology
25:18created by a space civilization.
25:20But most scientists now think
25:22Oumuamua was a totally natural object,
25:26just a really weird one.
25:28The best guess is that it was a comet
25:30releasing invisible hydrogen gas,
25:32which caused it to speed up slightly.
25:35Sadly, by the time astronomers found it,
25:37it was already heading out of the solar system,
25:39so there wasn't much time to study it.
25:42As for 2I Borisov,
25:44it sits in between at roughly 1.7 billion years old.
25:48It also came from the thin disk.
25:52It was the first confirmed comet
25:53to come from another star system,
25:55and it gave scientists a super-rare peek
25:58at what materials beyond our solar system
26:01were made of.
26:03The comet was discovered in 2019
26:05by Gennady Borisov,
26:07an amateur astronomer
26:08who actually built his own telescope
26:11to search for faint space objects.
26:14Unlike the first interstellar visitor,
26:16Oumuamua, which looked more like an asteroid,
26:19Borisov behaved like a classic comet.
26:22It had a bright coma.
26:24That's a temporary fuzzy atmosphere
26:26of gas and dust
26:27forming around the comet's nucleus
26:28as it approaches the sun.
26:30Plus, it boasted a long tail of dust and gas.
26:35Studying 2I Borisov
26:37helped researchers learn more
26:38about how other planetary systems form.
26:42observations showed that its dust grains
26:44were compact
26:44and that the amount of gases,
26:46like carbon dioxide,
26:47changed a lot as it approached the sun.
26:50It could mean that the comet formed
26:52under very different conditions
26:54than anything else in our solar system.
26:57Now, 2I Borisov is speeding away from the sun
27:01and will never return.
27:03But it allowed scientists
27:04to take a unique glimpse
27:06into the chemistry
27:07and history of distant worlds.
27:10Interestingly,
27:12the differences between
27:12these three space objects
27:14suggest that interstellar visitors
27:16have been getting kicked out
27:17of planetary systems
27:18all across the galaxy
27:20for billions of years.
27:21So it's not something new.
27:23To figure out
27:24if 3I Atlas
27:25might be some kind of probe
27:27from another planet,
27:28scientists are checking
27:29for any signs of technology,
27:31like strange radio signals,
27:33electric activity,
27:34and weird movement patterns.
27:37If the comet suddenly changes course
27:39or drops smaller objects nearby,
27:42it might be our cue.
27:44But even though 3I Atlas
27:46is moving in a pretty wild
27:48and energetic way,
27:49it's most likely
27:50just a natural interstellar object
27:52passing through.
27:54Researchers say
27:55they'll need a lot more proof
27:56before anyone can seriously say
27:58the space wanderer
27:59was sent by someone
28:01from another planet.
28:02What do you think
28:03about this newly discovered
28:05space traveler?
28:06Share your opinion
28:07in the comments!
28:08in the comments!
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