The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA, in English) issued an alert after activating its planetary defense protocol after detecting behavior considered “inexplicable” in the comet 31/ATLASan object first identified by the International Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN, in English).
As reported by the space agency, the technical notice was issued this past Tuesday through the MPEC bulletin (2025-U142) of the Harvard’s Minor Planet Centerwhich generated concern in the scientific community due to the unusual characteristics of the discovery.
In the statement, the agency explained that “cometary bodies are extended systems that can routinely extract measurements of their centroid from their central brightness peak,” which complicates calculations about their exact position.
For this reason, the IAWN warned that the comet presents “unique challenges” to accurately predict its trajectory and behavior in the coming weeks.
As reported by NASA, the team of specialists will carry out a special training exercise that will last from November 27 of this year to January 27, 2026.
The initiative is part of a series of actions aimed at analyzing more precisely the behavior of the 31/ATLAS phenomenon and strengthening response protocols against possible space threats.
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In this context, Harvard’s Minor Planet Center – which depends on the International Astronomical Union (IAU) and is funded by NASA—announced that, as part of the preparation for this campaign, a workshop will be held focused on techniques to correctly measure comet astrometry, in order to improve the precision of observations and avoid erroneous interpretations.
He Survey Telescope Asteroid Terrestrial Impact Last Alert System (ATLAS)located in Río Hurtado, Chile, and funded by NASA, detected on July 1, 2025 an object of interstellar origin with dimensions estimated between 20 and 30 kilometers: comet 3I/ATLAS.
According to astronomer Avi Loeb, its rocky core would have a diameter close to 5.6 kilometers and a mass greater than 33,000 million tons, making it one of the most massive bodies observed of its type.
The star was identified more than 670 million kilometers from the Sun, moving at a speed of 61 kilometers per second. Currently, the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands (IAC) It collaborates closely with other international centers in its analysis, with the aim of better understanding its composition, its trajectory and the possible scientific implications of its passage through the Solar System.