Visitor 3I/ATLAS. The profound silence of our solar system’s cosmic expanse has been interrupted by a new, enigmatic traveler from the depths of interstellar space.
Discovered on July 1, 2025, the object designated 3I/ATLAS has become only the third known interstellar visitor. However, its extraordinary characteristics, particularly its breathtaking speed, have compelled astronomers and astrophysicists to question long-held theories of celestial dynamics.
This emerging cosmological mystery not only expands our understanding of the universe but also reignites compelling speculation about the potential presence of extraterrestrial technology.
At the moment of its discovery, the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS was located approximately 670 million kilometers from the Sun, just inside the orbit of Jupiter. Since then, this celestial body has continued its journey through our planetary system at a remarkable pace, currently approaching the orbit of Mars.
The culmination of its trajectory its perihelion, or closest point to the Sun is anticipated on October 29th. At that time, 3I/ATLAS is calculated to be a mere 203 million kilometers from our star, tens of millions of kilometers closer than Mars itself.
Visitor 3I/ATLAS and Big Velocity.
However, it is the object’s velocity that has truly captivated the scientific community. Relative to the Sun, 3I/ATLAS is traveling at an astonishing 58 kilometers per second (approximately 130,000 miles per hour). To fully grasp the significance of this figure, it is essential to compare it with its predecessors.
The first known interstellar guest, the mysterious “Oumuamua“, entered our system at a speed of 26 km/s, while the second, “Comet Borisov“, traveled at 32 km/s. 3I/ATLAS is moving nearly twice as fast as both of them combined.
Its velocity is more than triple that of the legendary Voyager probes, which required decades of intricate gravitational maneuvers, harnessing the pull of our planets, just to achieve escape velocity from the Solar System.
This anomalously high speed has become the central, unsolved puzzle.
According to current astrophysical models, the gravitational interactions within a planetary system are insufficient to eject an object into interstellar space with such immense kinetic energy.
Even the powerful gravitational forces of massive stars and their planets typically cannot impart this level of acceleration. Furthermore, it is considered highly improbable that 3I/ATLAS could have accumulated this speed during its long voyage between the stars.
While it is theoretically possible to gain velocity through successive gravitational assists from other star systems, calculations indicate that such a step-by-step “accumulation” process would be unfeasible, requiring an impossibly long duration and a highly specific series of encounters to achieve the observed result.
Visitor 3I/ATLAS and trajectory.
In an attempt to unravel this mystery, a team of astrophysicists recently conducted a detailed investigation, sharing their findings in a preprint paper on the arXiv.org server.
Leveraging state-of-the-art technology and sophisticated data analysis, the scientists were able to meticulously reconstruct the trajectory of 3I/ATLAS, tracing it back over the last 100 million years.
They then performed a similar reverse-chronological simulation for 30 million stars within our galaxy, using data from the comprehensive Gaia space observatory catalog.
The analysis revealed that over the millions of years of its journey, 3I/ATLAS had passed relatively close to 25 of these stars. The most intimate of these encounters occurred 1.64 million years ago with the G 137-54 and G 137-55 binary red dwarf system.
At that time, the comet passed within less than a light-year of the system, with a relative velocity of 28 km/s. In relation to some of the other stars along its path, its speed exceeded an incredible 100 km/s.
These findings led the researchers to a startling and definitive conclusion: none of the stellar systems they examined could have been the “homeland” of 3I/ATLAS.
Their calculations unequivocally demonstrated that the gravitational forces at play in any of these systems would have been incapable of ejecting a celestial body into interstellar space at such a prodigious speed.
This leaves researchers with the profound implication that 3I/ATLAS must have been traveling at this extraordinary velocity from its very inception. How this was possible remains an unanswered question, one that demands new and perhaps unconventional explanations.
The door to more audacious hypotheses.
The arrival of 3I/ATLAS has provided new fuel for discussions about the possibility of artificially created extraterrestrial objects. Some astrophysicists, including prominent researchers from Harvard University, have pointed to a series of characteristics that seem too deliberate to be mere cosmic coincidences.
Firstly, the comet is traveling almost perfectly within the ecliptic planethe same flat plane in which all the planets of our solar system orbit the Sun.
For an interstellar object, which should arrive from a random orientation in three-dimensional space, such a trajectory is statistically highly improbable.
Secondly, its path appears to be meticulously plotted to fly by Jupiter, Mars, and Venus, while simultaneously maintaining a safe and wide berth from Earth.
This trajectory has the appearance of a perfectly calculated series of gravitational maneuvers, allowing an object to survey key planets in our system while remaining inconspicuous and posing no direct threat.
This “stealthy” orbital path, combined with its inexplicable speed, has led some to consider the possibility that 3I/ATLAS may not be a natural comet at all, but rather a technological artifact an advanced probe or vessel sent on a reconnaissance mission.
While the hypothesis of an artificial origin remains firmly in the realm of speculation, it underscores the truly exceptional nature of this new visitor.
As the broader scientific community continues its search for naturalistic explanations for the speed and trajectory of 3I/ATLAS, the object serves as a powerful reminder of how little we truly know about the dynamic processes occurring beyond the familiar confines of our Solar System.
As 3I/ATLAS continues its silent journey, it leaves in its wake not just a trail of dust and gas, but a profound set of fundamental questions about the fabric of the universe and, perhaps, our own place within it.
Have a Great Day!
These are them!!! The fourth “guest” will fly to Earth. It will be the end…
Unlike any known comet, its tail points directly toward the Sun, acting as an engine and suggesting active propulsion
Atlas is not just a natural body. Its anomalous chemical composition, dominated by carbon dioxide and nickel with no iron, only adds to the mystery.