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NASA has quietly made a major move to defend the planet after the mysterious interstellar object displayed more strange and unexplainable behavior.
The supposed comet, dubbed 3I/ATLAS, has just been added to the list of threats tracked by a United Nations-endorsed group focused on planetary defense against near-Earth objects.
The International Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN) works alongside institutions across the world that detect, track, and study near-Earth objects (NEOs) to assess potential impact threats to Earth.
3I/ATLAS is the first interstellar object ever added to the list, triggering a worldwide drill aimed at improving detection skills for space rocks and preparing Earth for a potential incoming threat.
On Tuesday, officials with IAWN admitted that the object was causing 'unique challenges' for predicting its trajectory and decided to add 3I/ATLAS to the Comet Astrometry Campaign.
The object has displayed several unusual features that defy the typical behavior of comets, including an 'anti-tail,' a jet of particles that points toward the Sun rather than away from it.
According to the release, scientists will be running a special training exercise from November 27, 2025, to January 27, 2026.
Telescopes and tracking systems around the world will focus on 3I/ATLAS to refine methods for pinpointing its exact location in the sky.
The supposed comet, 3I/ATLAS, has become the first interstellar object added to the list of threats tracked by the International Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN)
The Two-Meter Twin Telescope in the Canary Islands captured an image showing a faint jet of particles from 3I'ATLAS pointing toward the sun, something comets don't normally do
'They're calling it 'a test of improved astrometry methods.' In other words, the object isn't behaving like it should,' one person wrote on X.
'When every telescope from Mauna Kea to Chile is being synced on one object, that's not a drill,' another X user posted.
The Daily Mail reached out to NASA on Wednesday, but the agency maintained that the entire space program is 'currently closed' due to the ongoing government shutdown and did not comment further.
It is part of IAWN, along with the likes of the European Space Agency, which are all helping to organize this as a team effort to keep Earth safe from nearby asteroids and comets.
NASA isn't launching rockets to defend the planet from 3I/ATLAS, with the announcement treating this major event more like a tip-sharing exercise for stargazers everywhere to take better pictures of the supposed comet.
While scientists claimed they do not plan to begin the worldwide watch party until late November, 3I/ATLAS is just days away from making its closest approach to the sun, slipping out of view.
Harvard scientist Avi Loeb has theorized that this shocking 'maneuver' is a telltale sign of a spacecraft using the gravity of a large star to change its speed and course.
Before its recent strange behavior near the sun, 3I/ATLAS was scheduled to make its closest pass by Earth in December, but skeptics claim that activating the planetary warning system is proof that government officials fear this is no harmless comet.
NASA's James Webb Telescope spotted the interstellar visitor in August, which has since been discovered to be composed of strange materials including nickel
Loeb explained that in space travel, the best time to speed up or slow down a spacecraft is when it's closest to a large object, since firing the engine at that point, known as the Oberth effect, gives the biggest change in speed.
3I/ATLAS will reach its best window for an Oberth maneuver in one week when it comes within 126 million miles of our sun.
Whether it's a comet or something sent by an intelligence elsewhere in the galaxy, astronomers have concluded that it could be gigantic, with a diameter of more than 28 miles.
'If 3I/ATLAS is a massive mothership, it will likely continue along its original gravitational path and ultimately exit the Solar system,' Loeb shared in a Sunday blog post.
The professor has previously suggested that 3I/ATLAS could be a nuclear-powered craft after the Hubble Space Telescope revealed a picture that appeared to show the object generating its own light this summer.
During its closest pass by Mars on October 3, space probes sent back images which seemed to suggest that 3I/ATLAS was a giant cylindrical object coated in nickel, causing it to glow green.
This has fueled even more speculation that the comet is an extraterrestrial probe, as human spacecraft use nickel in the same way to protect them from super-hot rocket exhaust.
