A decisive radio detection from the MeerKAT array has effectively ended the urgent question of whether interstellar visitor 3I/ATLAS is a natural comet or something stranger.
For weeks, the object dubbed 3I/ATLAS has inspired fevered online debate and high-profile speculation that it might be an engineered artefact. That conversation shifted dramatically after South Africa's MeerKAT radio telescope recorded hydroxyl (OH) absorption lines, the radio fingerprint of water-related chemistry, from the object on 24 October 2025.
