Believe it or not, there is currently an international space safety emergency protocol in effect across the entire planet. The news has been somewhat lost in the press amid political turmoil and the assault on the Louvre, but NASA is currently conducting a very discreet and quiet deployment. The target is comet 3I/ATLAS, which is currently traveling through our solar system.
The MPEC Alert
The activation of this global system did not occur at a press conference, as is often the case in science fiction films. It was a closed event between international space agencies. What we do know are the specific details: it occurred on October 21, 2025, at 21:08 UT through a technical notice known as the MPEC bulletin (2025-U142), published by Harvard’s Minor Planet Center.
Neither planet Earth nor humanity were in danger, so this whole deployment was an internal protocol exercise. This communication we are referring to was only received by specialists. In this key publication from the International Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN), specialists announced that, until January 27, 2026, they would be focusing all their attention on comet 3I/ATLAS (C/2025 N1), whose behavior was described as “inexplicable.”
3I/ATLAS: an outsider in our solar system
Although to the average person this may seem like just another comet, the scientific community is fascinated by 3I/ATLAS. As its name suggests (3I), it is the third interstellar object (ISO) to be detected in our solar system. In other words, this comet does not belong to our sun, but was ejected from another star system eons ago—like someone being forcibly ejected from a nightclub.
This is why comet 3I/ATLAS has a hyperbolic trajectory with a speed of 209,000 km/h. It is traveling so fast, in fact, that our sun will not be able to attract it or even slightly change its trajectory: it will continue to travel at full speed through our solar system and continue on its way through the universe at full throttle.
And it’s not a tiny comet: its icy core appears to be about 5 km in diameter, just the size of a city like Manhattan (but don’t worry, we’ve already said it won’t hit Earth… Although it would be very cinematic if it fell right on that part of New York).
On October 30, 2025, it passed closest to the Sun, at a distance of 210 million kilometers. But if it’s such a large and fast object, why is it so difficult to track? The crux of the matter—and what has scientists scratching their heads—is a phenomenon called the “anti-tail.”
The Anticola Anomaly
Like all comets, 3I/ATLAS has a coma (a cloud of gas) and a tail of particles. However, this particular comet exhibits a trail of particles pointing directly toward the sun. This trail is quite unusual, and specialists are not accustomed to seeing it. This is why it is known as an “anti-tail,” since it does not behave like a normal tail.
Added to this is the fact that the comet experiences non-gravitational acceleration: when the jets of gas and dust emanating from the nucleus convulse, they act as small, uneven thrusters. This combination of the anti-tail and erratic acceleration causes its trajectory to constantly deviate from what the laws of gravity dictate. In other words, specialists and astronomers had a very narrow view of how a comet behaves… until 3I/ATLAS came along and taught us a lesson in how theory and reality often do not match.
This is why all the world’s space agencies are focusing their attention on the comet: it is the perfect opportunity to study how a celestial object behaves, without the danger of it coming into contact with Earth. 3I/ATLAS will pass at a minimum distance of 270 million kilometers from Earth. This distance is 1.8 times the distance between us and the Sun. And there are only advantages: NASA will be able to study the comet to prepare for future stellar objects, and we can rest easy knowing that it will not come anywhere near our planet.