3I/ATLAS, the third known interstellar object to enter our solar system, after 'Oumuamua (discovered in 2017) and 2I/Borisov (discovered in 2019), continue to intrigue space enthusiasts.

The comet, discovered in July 2025, sparked speculations about its origins due to its unusual trajectory and properties.

Its mysterious nature prompted some scientists, including Harvard scientist Avi Loeb, to say that the comet might not be naturally occurring. Although NASA refuted all the claims and referred to it as a "comet", nothing else.

Now, a group of astronomers have confirmed it again, saying that 3I/ATLAS is not an alien spacecraft, but rather a natural comet originating from beyond our solar system.

However, they detected no artificial radio emissions, concluding that the comet is a natural object. "We all would have been thrilled to find technosignatures coming from 3I/ATLAS, but they're just not there," lead researcher Benjamin Jacobson-Bell from the University of California, Berkeley, told Space.com.

"Finding no signals was the result we expected, due to the significant evidence for 3I/ATLAS being a comet with only natural features.

The interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS made its closest approach to Earth recently on December 19, and apparently caused no harm, passing at a safe distance of 269 million kilometres. But even on its way to exit our star system, the scientists will continue analysing data to understand more about the mysterious comet.

Source:Ndtv