Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb has renewed speculation about the mysterious interstellar object 3I/ATLAS ahead of its closest approach to the Sun, suggesting that it could behave like a 'mothership' releasing small probes as it passes through the inner Solar System.
Loeb, who leads Harvard's Galileo Project, said the object officially classified as a comet will reach perihelion on 29 October 2025, coming within about 203 million kilometres (1.36 astronomical units) of the Sun. At that point, he explained, a natural comet would typically experience heating, fragmentation, or increased outgassing. But if the object were an engineered craft, it might instead 'manoeuvre or deploy mini-probes toward nearby planets.'
