It's the cosmic equivalent of a forensic cold case, spanning more than two millennia: did an ancient Chinese star map correctly catalogue a celestial object that modern science now suspects might be alien technology?
The interstellar comet known prosaically as 3I/ATLAS is no longer just a source of intrigue for astronomers; it has become a central piece in the ferocious online debate about extraterrestrial life. Its non-solar trajectory — its clear status as an interloper from deep space — already set it apart. But it is the comet's strange, 'anomalous' behaviour that continues to defy natural explanation, leading respected figures like Harvard's Avi Loeb to entertain the possibility that it is, in fact, an artificial probe.
