Jul 18, 2025 10:52 PM
Is the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS alien technology?
https://avi-loeb.medium.com/is-the-inter...9ccc17b2e3
EXCERPTS: Today I co-authored an intriguing new paper with the brilliant collaborators Adam Hibberd and Adam Crowl from the Initiative for Interstellar Studies in London, UK. The paper is accessible here.
One of the solutions to Enrico Fermi’s question about extraterrestrials: “where is everybody?” is offered by the dark forest hypothesis, popularized by Cixin Liu’s science fiction novel “The Dark Forest.”
This hypothesis proposes that our cosmic neighborhood is dangerous, filled with intelligent civilizations that are hostile and silent to avoid detection by potential predators. In this context, the silence in searches for radio signals by the SETI community is not caused by the lack of extraterrestrial intelligent civilizations, but is instead a consequence of them fearing mutual destruction.
Our paper explores the possibility that the recently discovered interstellar object, 3I/ATLAS, may provide evidence in support of the dark forest hypothesis. This new interstellar interloper has displayed a number of anomalous characteristics, some of which were summarized in an essay that I wrote shortly after its discovery...
[...] The near alignment of the retrograde trajectory of 3I/ATLAS with the ecliptic plane offers various benefits to an extraterrestrial intelligence, since it allows a spacecraft to access Earth with relative impunity. The eclipse of 3I/ATLAS by the Sun at perihelion for observers at Earth, would allow a spacecraft to conduct a clandestine reverse Solar Oberth maneuver, an optimal high-thrust strategy for interstellar spacecraft to brake and stay bound to the Sun. An optimal intercept of Earth would entail an arrival in late November or early December of 2025. Detection of a non-gravitational acceleration could also indicate an intent to intercept Jupiter, not far off the path of 3I/ATLAS, and a strategy to rendezvous with it after perihelion.
Our paper is contingent on a remarkable but testable hypothesis that 3I/ATLAS is a functioning technological artifact, to which I and my two co-authors do not necessarily ascribe. Yet, this hypothesis is worthy of a scientific analysis for two reasons:
1. 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).
2. The hypothesis is an interesting exercise in its own right, and is fun to explore, irrespective of its likely validity.
Given its interstellar speed of 60 kilometers per second, 3I/ATLAS entered the outer boundary of the Solar System (at 100,000 times the Earth-Sun separation) about 8,000 years ago. This was roughly when human-made technologies became advanced enough to start documenting history on Earth.
If the hypothesis about a technological artifact ends up being correct, then there are two possible implications: first that the intentions of 3I/ATLAS are entirely benign, and second that they are malign. In the first case, humanity need not do anything but await the arrival of this interstellar messenger with open arms. It is the second option which is of great concern.
Given the dramatic implications of the second possibility, we can apply the logic of Pascal’s wager that suggested it is more rational to believe in God’s existence than not. The insight offered by the mathematician Blaise Pascal was that the potential benefits of believing (in our case — alerting humanity to the existential risk from 3I/ATLAS) far outweigh the potential losses (in our case — a theoretical idea that does not describe reality), while the potential losses of not believing are far greater than the potential benefits.
Our paper is largely a pedagogical exercise, with interesting realizations worthy of a record in the scientific literature. By far, the most likely outcome will be that 3I/ATLAS is a completely natural interstellar object, probably a comet, and we await the astronomical data to support this likely origin.
Nevertheless, when viewed from an open-minded and unprejudiced perspective, our paper includes many compelling insights that could be applied to tens of interstellar objects that are expected to be detected over the next decade by the Vera C. Rubin observatory... (MORE - missing details)
https://avi-loeb.medium.com/is-the-inter...9ccc17b2e3
EXCERPTS: Today I co-authored an intriguing new paper with the brilliant collaborators Adam Hibberd and Adam Crowl from the Initiative for Interstellar Studies in London, UK. The paper is accessible here.
One of the solutions to Enrico Fermi’s question about extraterrestrials: “where is everybody?” is offered by the dark forest hypothesis, popularized by Cixin Liu’s science fiction novel “The Dark Forest.”
This hypothesis proposes that our cosmic neighborhood is dangerous, filled with intelligent civilizations that are hostile and silent to avoid detection by potential predators. In this context, the silence in searches for radio signals by the SETI community is not caused by the lack of extraterrestrial intelligent civilizations, but is instead a consequence of them fearing mutual destruction.
Our paper explores the possibility that the recently discovered interstellar object, 3I/ATLAS, may provide evidence in support of the dark forest hypothesis. This new interstellar interloper has displayed a number of anomalous characteristics, some of which were summarized in an essay that I wrote shortly after its discovery...
[...] The near alignment of the retrograde trajectory of 3I/ATLAS with the ecliptic plane offers various benefits to an extraterrestrial intelligence, since it allows a spacecraft to access Earth with relative impunity. The eclipse of 3I/ATLAS by the Sun at perihelion for observers at Earth, would allow a spacecraft to conduct a clandestine reverse Solar Oberth maneuver, an optimal high-thrust strategy for interstellar spacecraft to brake and stay bound to the Sun. An optimal intercept of Earth would entail an arrival in late November or early December of 2025. Detection of a non-gravitational acceleration could also indicate an intent to intercept Jupiter, not far off the path of 3I/ATLAS, and a strategy to rendezvous with it after perihelion.
Our paper is contingent on a remarkable but testable hypothesis that 3I/ATLAS is a functioning technological artifact, to which I and my two co-authors do not necessarily ascribe. Yet, this hypothesis is worthy of a scientific analysis for two reasons:
1. 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).
2. The hypothesis is an interesting exercise in its own right, and is fun to explore, irrespective of its likely validity.
Given its interstellar speed of 60 kilometers per second, 3I/ATLAS entered the outer boundary of the Solar System (at 100,000 times the Earth-Sun separation) about 8,000 years ago. This was roughly when human-made technologies became advanced enough to start documenting history on Earth.
If the hypothesis about a technological artifact ends up being correct, then there are two possible implications: first that the intentions of 3I/ATLAS are entirely benign, and second that they are malign. In the first case, humanity need not do anything but await the arrival of this interstellar messenger with open arms. It is the second option which is of great concern.
Given the dramatic implications of the second possibility, we can apply the logic of Pascal’s wager that suggested it is more rational to believe in God’s existence than not. The insight offered by the mathematician Blaise Pascal was that the potential benefits of believing (in our case — alerting humanity to the existential risk from 3I/ATLAS) far outweigh the potential losses (in our case — a theoretical idea that does not describe reality), while the potential losses of not believing are far greater than the potential benefits.
Our paper is largely a pedagogical exercise, with interesting realizations worthy of a record in the scientific literature. By far, the most likely outcome will be that 3I/ATLAS is a completely natural interstellar object, probably a comet, and we await the astronomical data to support this likely origin.
Nevertheless, when viewed from an open-minded and unprejudiced perspective, our paper includes many compelling insights that could be applied to tens of interstellar objects that are expected to be detected over the next decade by the Vera C. Rubin observatory... (MORE - missing details)