Harvard scientist warns interstellar object blasting toward Earth ‘may come to save – or destroy us’
An interstellar object is heading towards Earth, scientist warns
- Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb has suggested that the interstellar object 31/ATLAS, recently detected nearing Earth, could be an engineered object rather than a natural one.
- Loeb bases his theory on the object's unusual brightness, which implies a diameter of 20 km, and a glow observed in front of it, unlike the trailing tail of typical comets.
- He noted that it would take 10,000 years for such a massive object to naturally arrive in the inner solar system, and that it will be unobservable when closest to Earth.
- 31/ATLAS is only the third interstellar object ever detected in our solar system, confirmed to have originated outside it.
- Loeb has a history of similar controversial claims, having previously theorised an alien origin for Oumuamua in 2017 and for a meteor recovered in 2023, though other astrophysicists have offered natural explanations for these phenomena.