
Quote: Hawking advised against active attempts to contact alien civilizations, which could be dangerous, arguing that an advanced alien race could see the same bacteria as humans, which could lead to catastrophic consequences if they discovered Earth.
Ref: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11462274/
Background: 3I/ATLAS, also known as C/2025 N1 and previously as A11pl3Z, is an interstellar comet discovered by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System station at Río Hurtado, Chile on 1 July 2025, when it was entering the inner Solar System at a distance of 4.5 astronomical units from the Sun.
Technical details: A team of researchers has presented the wild theory that an interstellar object might be hostile “alien technology” that could reach Earth in fall 2025. Below is the speculation based on evidences.
-3I/ATLAS orbital plane lies virtually in the Ecliptic, though retrogade, i = 175.11◦
-3I/ATLAS is too large to be an asteroid
-3I/ATLAS shows no evidence of cometary outgassing.
Ref: cometary outgassing provides the energy to push a comet away from the Sun. As a comet approaches the Sun, its icy nucleus warms, causing ices to sublimate and release gas and dust, forming a coma. This outgassing exerts a force on the comet, pushing it in the opposite direction of the escaping gas, which is a major factor in the comet’s trajectory.
– 3I/ATLAS approaches unusually close to Venus, Mars and Jupiter
– I/ATLAS achieves perihelion on the opposite side of the Sun to Earth
Remark: The Earth revolves around the Sun in an elliptical orbit, and its closest point to the Sun is called perihelion.
– The optimal point to do a reverse Solar Oberth and stay bound to the Sun is at perihelion.
– 3I/ATLAS’s incoming radiant made it hard to detect sooner
The incoming radiant of comet 3I/ATLAS aligning with the Galactic Center, a bright and crowded region of the sky, made it difficult to detect, according to an Instagram post. This unusual entry path, coupled with the comet’s potential “silent propulsion” (lacking typical outgassing) and close encounters with planets, contributed to its delayed detection.
Technical papers announcement: The technical paper was published on the preprint server arXiv on July 16, 2025. For more information, please refer to the link – https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.12213
Yahoo headlines from July 27, 2025 https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/possibly-hostile-alien-object-could-023132776.html