3I/Atlas Bull

 

At the time I write these words it is just one week to go until "Mars Day", the moment 3I/Atlas reaches its closest point of approach to the planet Mars. The two bodies will apear as a conjunction in the earth's sky, 7.3 degrees apart. Unfortunately soon after that point terrestrial telescopes will lose all sight of the mysterious interstellar object for over a month as it passes behind the sun. Even now astronomers can only see it for a few minutes just before dawn. The earth is literally in the worst possible location to observe the phenomenon. There are no assets in space that are capable of monitoring it during perihelion. If only 3I had arrived six months earlier or six months later; we'd have a ringside seat!... Maybe that's deliberate. As always the one-stop shop for everything you wanted to know about 3I/Atlas, but were afraid to ask, is Avi Loeb's blog, see: https://avi-loeb.medium.com. Back in July there was a strong feeling of "promissory normality" in the astronomical community. The great hope for the skeppers was that the more we learned about 3I the more ordinary it would become, but the opposite has happened. Each new piece of data makes the object look weirder and weirder. It is currently at four on the Loeb scale. When it passes Mars we will hopefully get a really close look at it from the repurposed Martian probes. I do hope the space agencies will coopertate; if not, why not? Even if 3I is a natural object, which I doubt, it is one of the most unusual ever detected. Surely that alone justifies turning the HiRISE camera towards it. Sadly, but very predictably, social media trolls and grifters have jumped into the 3I slipstream with posts I will not link to, but they have ridiculous titles like "3I/Atlas is Changing Course to Strike the Earth!", "A Comet is Heading to Attack 3I/Atlas!" and "NASA is Covering Up Signals from 3I/Atlas!" These posts tend to be technically sophisticated with AI animated videos and voices. They are very persuasive, but total nonsense. 3I/Atlas is an extraordinary object, possibly our first indisputable encounter with extraterrestrial technology. Isn't that exciting enough without making up crap? Making up rubbish like this about 3I is very unhelpful. It might also frighten sensitive people. If 3I were manoeuvring or giving off signals etc we'd all know about it immediately. There are thousands of telescopes watching it and millions of astronomers. The government can't cover that up. It's not like Roswell; you can't just put a fence around it and replace it with a weather balloon. A crash-retrieval is a strictly local affair, but not this. All the data is above our heads. Astronomy is the one truly democratic science, see: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2025/09/dorset-earth-mysteries-4-3iatlas-and.html. I am not scared of 3I/Atlas. I am concerned about how it could be exploited, as I say in the background link below; but that's a human issue, nothing to do directly with the object. If it does something truly alien then that will be effectively a catastrophic Disclosure moment. It will invevitably inspire people to ask more seraching questions about extraterrestrial technology and the relationship it has with the state. I'm hoping and praying that's what it does.
See here for more information: https://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2025/07/interstellar-object-portal.html.