Here is a chart of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS’s path across our sky in the remainder of this year.
See the end note about enlarging illustrations.
Noticing how closely it tries to keep to the ecliptic, which is the plane of Earth’s orbit, you’d be forgiven for suspecting that it was sent into our solar system by beings who know something about us.
But, as made clear by our space view on November 26, it has been aimed way wide of our planet. It stays on the other side of the Sun, and at nearest on December 19 it will be 1.7 AU (Sun-Earth distances) from us and perhaps no brighter than magnitude 18, much dimmer than the dimmest stars in the chart – unless those aliens have equipped themselves with lights and fireworks for our holiday season.
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Guy, thank you for the excellent chart of the comet’s trajectory through Virgo and into Leo. I have read wildly different estimates of its brightness, but in my image from November 28, the comet is about magnitude 11. The two galaxies that show up as small smudges are magnitude 11 and 12, and the comet appears to be as bright or slightly brighter than they are.
http://www.starvergnuegen.com/astropix/2025/11_november/2025_11_28_atlas_b.html
As for the possibility of life elsewhere besides Earth, I would think that given their chemical properties, carbon atoms and water molecules would be the most likely basis for it.
Magnificent. If it had been as dim as my formula gave, it wouldn’t have shown in your photo.
Highly unlikely but beware just the same. Maybe they want specimens like you and Til. Then again you might like to be abducted by aliens with a new language you can study.
Don’t we all wish we could live to the moment when we get to know that there is (or is not) conscious life elsewhere, life not based on carbon molecules, language based otherwise than on verbs or vocal organs…