bhaskar saikia

The cosmos has always whispered secrets — faint signals, passing lights, unexplained phenomena that remind us how little we truly know.
And now, another whisper has arrived.

Discovered in July 2025 by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) in Chile, 3i/ATLAS has captured the imagination of astronomers and dreamers alike. Classified as the third known interstellar object to enter our Solar System, its hyperbolic trajectory confirms that it comes from beyond — from the depths of interstellar space.

But this one feels different.

The Mystery Deepens

Renowned astrophysicist Avi Loeb of Harvard University, known for his provocative and open-minded approach to cosmic anomalies, has drawn attention to 3i/ATLAS’s peculiar traits. Its path, brightness, and motion seem to defy easy explanation. And intriguingly, Loeb notes that its incoming direction aligns — within roughly nine degrees — with the same region of the sky from which the 1977 “Wow! Signal” was detected: the constellation Sagittarius.

That famous radio signal, lasting just 72 seconds, remains one of the most tantalizing moments in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Could 3i/ATLAS and the Wow! Signal be two echoes of the same cosmic story, separated by nearly half a century?

No one knows for sure — but the coincidence is hard to ignore.

“If You Want to Take a Vacation…”

In a playful yet haunting remark, Avi Loeb wrote on Medium:

“If you want to take a vacation, take it before October 29, because who knows what will happen?”

That date — October 29, 2025 — marks 3i/ATLAS’s perihelion, the point where it passes closest to the Sun. During this time, it will also enter solar conjunction, disappearing behind the Sun from our vantage point on Earth. We won’t be able to observe it clearly — a perfect moment, some might say, for a mystery to unfold unseen.

Of course, Loeb’s comment was part jest, part provocation — an invitation to imagine boldly, to question whether the universe’s surprises might be greater than we assume.

A Cosmic Whisper

Whether 3i/ATLAS is an ordinary interstellar comet or something far more extraordinary, one truth remains: the universe continues to challenge our sense of certainty.

Perhaps, as it swings around the Sun in the coming days, nothing unusual will happen — it will fade into the background of cosmic statistics.
Or perhaps, it will remind us, once again, that wonder still lives at the edge of what we understand.

After all, every great discovery began as a question someone dared to ask.

And so, as October 29 approaches — just days away — we might look up at the stars and listen closely. The cosmos has spoken before, in signals and silences. Maybe it’s about to speak again.

N.B: And if 3i/ATLAS indeed turns out to be alien technology — our first confirmed contact — at least I can say I’ve already written a book on how to deal with this new alien reality, years before it arrived. [Here’s the link to that book.]