{"id":263762,"date":"2026-06-04T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/04\/search-for-alien-technology-on-interstellar-comet-3i-atlas-comes-up-empty\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T06:05:30","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T10:05:30","slug":"search-for-alien-technology-on-interstellar-comet-3i-atlas-comes-up-empty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/04\/search-for-alien-technology-on-interstellar-comet-3i-atlas-comes-up-empty\/","title":{"rendered":"Search for alien technology on Interstellar Comet 3I\/ATLAS comes up empty"},"content":{"rendered":"

Search for alien technology on Interstellar Comet 3I\/ATLAS comes up empty<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.scientificamerican.com\/article\/search-for-alien-technology-on-interstellar-comet-3i-atlas-comes-up-empty\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-06-04 06:00:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.scientificamerican.com<\/a><\/p>\n

When Comet 3I\/ATLAS entered our solar system last year\u2014only the third known interstellar object to do so\u2014astronomers took notice. And so did scientists searching for extraterrestrial intelligence, who were curious whether this particular interloper may have been linked to aliens.<\/p>\n

When astronomers first discovered 3I\/ATLAS in July 2025, the icy body was traveling at an impressive speed of about 137,000 miles per hour. Researchers later discovered that it is \u201cbursting with methanol\u201d and its coma\u2014the vapor envelope that forms as the icy object nears the sun\u2014is full of frozen carbon dioxide. Both observations provide astronomers with clues about the comet\u2019s cosmic origin. All signs suggested the interstellar object was natural, but some astronomers took the opportunity to look for so-called “technosignatures,” particularly radio signals that could be produced by an artificial thing.<\/p>\n

\u201cEventually, our own Voyager spacecraft will be extraterrestrial artifacts in other stellar systems,\u201d said Sofia Sheikh, a research scientist at the SETI Institute, in a statement, referring to the twin interstellar probes that NASA launched in 1977. \u201cGiven that, it is important that we understand the natural distribution of interstellar objects so that we will be able to identify any anomalies that could one day be signs of an artificial interstellar object.\u201d<\/p>\n

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To help rule out the possibility that 3I\/ATLAS contained some kind of alien technology, Sheikh and colleagues tracked the comet with a radio telescope, the Allen Telescope Array (ATA), and looked for narrowband radio signals\u2014\u201cthe kind that can only come from technology,\u201d Sheikh says. \u201cAfter analyzing several hours of data across the full…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Search for alien technology on Interstellar Comet 3I\/ATLAS comes up empty https:\/\/www.scientificamerican.com\/article\/search-for-alien-technology-on-interstellar-comet-3i-atlas-comes-up-empty\/ Publish Date: 2026-06-04…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":263763,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static.scientificamerican.com\/dam\/asset\/122a3f54-382c-45d1-936a-536bbfbed051\/The-ATA-at-the-Hat-Creek-Radio-Observatory.jpg?m=1780520589.009&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[129],"class_list":["post-263762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-solar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263762"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263762"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263762\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":263764,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263762\/revisions\/263764"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}