NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day

December 1, 2025

3I ATLAS: Tails of an Interstellar Comet

How typical is our Solar System? Studying 3I/ATLAS, a comet just passing through, is providing clues. Confirmed previous interstellar visitors include an asteroid, a comet, a meteor, and a gas wind dominated by hydrogen and helium. Comet 3I/ATLAS appears relatively normal when compared to Solar System comets, therefore providing more evidence that our Solar System is a somewhat typical star system. For example, Comet 3I/ATLAS has a broadly similar chemical composition and ejected dust. The featured image was captured last week from Texas and shows a green coma, a wandering blue-tinted ion tail likely deflected by our Sun's wind, and a slight anti-tail, all typical cometary attributes. The comet, visible with a telescope, passed its closest to the Sun in late October and will pass its closest to the Earth in mid-December, after which it will return to interstellar space and never return.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

>>23925880

X Class Solar Flare, New Pole Shift Radiation Record | S0 News and frens

Dec.1.2025

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yC9yGm9TJw

https://x.com/MrMBB333/status/1995349711235277080

https://x.com/astro_Pettit/status/1995230369013281125

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiecartereurope/2025/12/01/giant-new-sunspot-and-x-class-solar-flare-could-bring-bright-auroras/

https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/

https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/news/x19-flare-r3-strong-event

https://www.SpaceWeatherNews.com

https://usaherald.com/europe-launches-historic-planetary-defense-drill-as-3i-atlas-forces-a-global-wake-up-call/

https://x.com/AstronomyVibes/status/1995465878960259548

https://x.com/Svetlan44474521/status/1995482161772687474

https://x.com/YueRaelian/status/1995329259771191720

https://x.com/konstructivizm/status/1995087914208776524

https://avi-loeb.medium.com/

Europe Launches Historic Planetary-Defense Drill as 3I/ATLAS Forces a Global Wake-Up Call

December 1, 2025

A silent gap in public communication has become the newest threat revealed by 3I/ATLAS.

• A global exercise begins as the world watches a visitor from deep space.

• A planetary-defense system discovers its most vulnerable point.

• Interstellar object forces governments to confront what they were unprepared to admit.

Last week, Europe crossed a threshold that will be remembered long after 3I/ATLAS exits the solar system.

At the exact moment telescopes worldwide were collecting new data on the interstellar object racing toward its December 19 close-approach, the European Space Agency approved a record-breaking €22.1 billion budget and immediately activated the largest planetary-defense drill in human history.

The exercise, unprecedented in scale and urgency, is partially centered on tracking 3I/ATLAS as it moves through space at nearly 60 km/s—its trajectory and behavior having already defied expectations in ways that prompted global coordination rather than quiet observation.

I reviewed the European planning documents and the UN/IAWN campaign outline released just hours before the drill began. The intention was unmistakable: this was not a symbolic demonstration, but a real-world rehearsal triggered in part by the confusion and communication failures exposed during the last four months of 3I/ATLAS monitoring.

Although the object poses no threat to Earth, the psychological shockwaves it generated—accelerations, decelerations, anti-tail jets, rotational signatures, unusual UV halos, and pulsed brightness surges—revealed a critical systemic weakness.

Space agencies were running planetary-defense operations without any unified mechanism for informing the public during periods of uncertainty.

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NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office, ESA’s Space Safety program, and the IAWN network each operate with precision, but none are designed to speak directly to the global population when an object behaves in a way that most citizens do not understand.

When I examined the public’s response to the exercise over the past week, the pattern was unmistakable. Two questions appeared more frequently than any others: “If 3I/ATLAS is harmless, why link a planetary-defense drill to its monitoring?”

And “if the comet is far away, what happens if it suddenly changes direction?”

These are not the questions of panic—they are the questions of people navigating a vacuum where institutional communication should exist. The absence of coordinated public guidance created space for anxiety, misinformation, and speculation.

That void was filled almost entirely by independent scientists, amateur astronomers, and voices like Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb, who has repeatedly stepped in to translate anomalies into understandable explanations while urging transparency from governmental agencies.

My review of Loeb’s published analyses shows the same tension reflected in scientific circles.

His breakdowns of non-gravitational acceleration, jet symmetry, nickel-to-iron compositional anomalies, and the unexplained persistence of the object’s anti-tail have all operated as de facto public briefings—precisely the type of communication a formal planetary-defense architecture has never institutionalized.

The European drill acknowledges this by including, for the first time, a training component focused on public communication, behavioral guidance, and psychological resilience. It is a recognition that in the era of interstellar visitors, ignorance becomes its own hazard.

The geopolitical implications of this shift are already emerging. China last week announced expanded cooperation with the UN planetary-defense framework.

The United States quietly disclosed new classified contracting connected to the “Golden Dome” architecture—a multi-layered observational and interception system aligned with the strategic posture of the U.S. Space Force.

India and Israel, each operating advanced optical networks, signaled readiness to contribute data streams if the European drill enters a second operational phase.

The convergence of these powers around a single interstellar object underscores how profoundly 3I/ATLAS has altered the mental map of national security.

From a scientific perspective, the object remains stable and presents no measurable threat. But the true anomaly—bigger than its jets, brighter than its UV halo, and more consequential than its bizarre rotating structure—is what it has revealed about us.

3I/ATLAS has exposed the fragility of global communication in a world where interstellar visitors are no longer theoretical.

It has forced agencies to admit that even a harmless comet can ignite uncertainty when institutions are unprepared to speak clearly, consistently, and with scientific authority.

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>>23926310

3I/ATLAS is coming to 'check us out': Musk's ex, Grimes, joins debate on 'mysterious stranger'

Updated: Dec 01, 2025, 09:32 IST

After Kim Kardashian, Elon Musk's former partner Claire Elise Boucher, aka Grimes, is the latest celebrity to weigh in on 3I/ATLAS, the interstellar visitor that has created a buzz in the scientific community.

The Canadian artist has presented a totally whacky perspective, talking about an alien community and testing whether humans are ready to join.

She wrote on X on November 29, "My theory is 3i atlas is coming to check us out cuz we're so close to asi and perhaps when we achieve certain goals we get to join the alien federation of civilizations or else they need to check if we're mentally stable for such god like tech and if they need to eradicate us (in which case we shud be nicer)."

If 3I/ATLAS was an alien spaceship, all it would need to do is…

Grimes admitted that her bizarre take is merely a fantasy. A user explained to Grimes the methods those on board 3I/ATLAS would use if they were aliens.

The person commented on Grimes's post that "if they wanted to stay hidden, all they'd have to do is paint the spaceship black."

In case, they wanted humans to know that they were coming, “all they need to do is blink a laser at us or change velocity in an unexpected way.” Grimes responded, "Stop destroying my fantasies with ur realistic and informed takes."

3I/ATLAS makes for a ‘captivating story’ for everyone

In another post, Grimes, who shares son X Æ A-xii and a daughter with Musk, stated that aliens or not, the mysterious visitor makes for a “captivating story for little humans”.

"I love when there are scientific discoveries or debates that are as legible and interesting for little humans as they are to adults," she wrote.

Grimes added, "I'm not overly wishful but even if it's just a mysterious, strange interstellar object, that is still incredibly captivating and rare."

3I/ATLAS has captured the attention of scientists across the world as it is only the third interstellar object ever seen in the solar system, after Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov, both discovered in the last decade.

Now with the Vera Rubin Observatory, scientists expect to uncover more such alien visitors.

https://www.wionews.com/trending/3iatlas-is-coming-to-check-us-out-musk-s-ex-grimes-joins-the-debate-on-interstellar-comet-1764560131316

https://x.com/Grimezsz/status/1994657284539171037

People are only just discovering the US wanted to nuke the moon for this terrifying reason

Published 17:32 30 Nov 2025 GMT

• People are only just discovering the US wanted to nuke the moon for this terrifying reason

• NASA and the US Air Force wanted to bomb the moon in 1958

People are only just learning of a strange US plot to bomb the moon, and the reason is even more bizarre than the plan.

For a company that has famously frequented the giant space rock, NASA was allegedly in on a ploy to send nuclear bomb to the celestial body in the 1950s.

At a time when the space race was at full steam and the USSR was inching closer to its goal of being the first to land astronauts on the moon, the US was feeling the pressure.

Of course, Neil Armstrong ended up being the first person to step foot on the moon's surface in 1969, but history could have changed in a scary way had the US gone through with its original plan.

While some social media users have said it 'sounds like something from a Looney Tunes cartoon', the terrifying plan was actually very real.

The US' top secret Project A119 had the totally normal goal of dropping a hydrogen bomb on the moon.

Now, a hydrogen bomb is far more destructive than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, and it would need to be, considering the aim was to create a giant crater on the surface of the moon to mark the US’s territory if the Russian astronauts got too close to their goal.

The plan was in retaliation to the USSR sending the first satellite to space, known as Sputnik 1.

In collaboration with the Air Force, respected scientist Leonard Reiffel created reports from May 1958 and January 1959 which documented whether the plan would work. Reiffel insisted in 2000 it was 'technically feasible'.

What they wanted was to happen was for the bomb to detonate on the Moon’s Terminator Line – the border between the light and dark side of the Moon – which would create a flash of light visible to everyone, particularly the Kremlin.

This would show the nation that the US had the technology to win wars, and that it wasn’t a country to mess with.

You also need to remember that in the 50s, America was stuck in the Cold War and arms race, and the only edge it had on Russia was its ability to advance its missiles faster.

But Russia was close behind.

"Project A119 was one of several ideas that were floated for an exciting response to Sputnik," said Alex Wellerstein, a historian of science and nuclear technology, told the BBC.

He said the plan also included shooting down Sputnik, which, he said, ‘feels very spiteful.’

However, instead of doing so, they chose to put up their own satellite in the late 50s.

As for why the moon remains un-nuked, the Air Force were worried the missile launch could go wrong and impact the Earth. Nice of them to think of that, I guess.

The top-secret plan was fortunately put to bed, and amazingly only surfaced in the 1990s after one of the scientists involved namedropped it on a job application.

https://www.unilad.com/technology/nasa/nasa-air-force-nuclear-bomb-moon-space-race-041288-20251130