A truly extraordinary story is going viral online involving interstellar object 3I/ATLAS, space, mystery and possible extraterrestrial life. This is due to a few viral tweets that have caused intense debate by, in a way, implying that NASA might be hiding real images of the 3I/ATLAS and that the sudden loss of communication from the Mars orbiting MAVEN spacecraft is connected to this secret.
It's easy to get swayed by conspiracy theories on social media, as a few have taken this to mean that what scientists are calling a comet could actually be something far more intriguing, like an alien spaceship. But before jumping to conclusions, we need to look carefully at what is being claimed and what evidence actually exists.
