Harvard scientist Avi Loeb speculated that NASA’s recently released photos of 3I/ATLAS could potentially point to its artificial origins — and even wondered if the so-called comet was purposely targeting and sweeping meteorites out of its path. He posited his theory in a viral new blog post on Medium.

It's possibly as big as Manhattan, likely older than our own solar system, and it's traveling through space at speeds of up to 153,000 miles per hour.

It’s an excellent rehearsal for if we need to use interplanetary missions to calculate the path of a more threatening object.

Since comet 3I/ATLAS, the third known interstellar object, was discovered on 1 July 2025, astronomers worldwide have worked to predict its trajectory. ESA has now improved the comet's predicted location by a factor of 10,