Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS arrived in the Solar System as a fragment of deep time, a frozen shard that formed long before Earth existed and is now briefly sharing our neighborhood. Its passage has sparked a rare public conversation in which Neil deGrasse Tyson and Brian Cox weigh the evidence for what this object really is, while online speculation races toward alien megastructures and secret intentions. I want to trace how their arguments, and the data behind them, reveal a relic that predates humanity yet tells us more about our own future than about visiting civilizations.
The question in the headline, whether this relic could outdate humanity, is not about doomsday but about perspective: 3I/ATLAS appears to be older than our planet, older than our species, and older than the Solar System itself, and it will keep traveling long after our descendants are gone. By following how Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System astronomers, Tyson, Cox and their colleagues interpret this object, I can show why its age and trajectory matter far more than the wilder claims about alien spacecraft.
How ATLAS found a visitor from before Earth existed
The story of 3I/ATLAS begins with a system built to protect us, not to inspire us. The Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, better known as ATLAS, is a survey network designed to spot potentially hazardous objects on a collision course with Earth, and on July 1 it did exactly that job by flagging a fast moving point of light that turned out to be an interstellar comet. In a later conversation, Neil deGrasse Tyson described how this detection, by a system whose very name spells out Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, set the stage for a much larger discussion about what it means to host a visitor from beyond the Sun’s family, a point he explored in a wide ranging episode of his show with Brian Cox after the initial ATLAS discovery.
Once astronomers realized the orbit of 3I/ATLAS was hyperbolic, meaning it would not loop back around the Sun but instead pass through once and leave forever, the object was quickly classified as the third known interstellar visitor after 1I/ʻOumuamua and 2I/Borisov. That status alone made it a scientific prize, but what elevated it further was the recognition that its composition and trajectory could encode conditions from a time before the Solar System formed. Tyson framed this in his discussion with Cox as a chance to study material that has been wandering the galaxy for billions of years, a perspective that turns a routine ATLAS alert into a rare window on the deep past.
Tyson and Cox frame an object older than us
When Neil deGrasse Tyson invited Professor Brian Cox onto his program to talk about 3I/ATLAS, the conversation quickly moved beyond orbital mechanics to the unsettling idea that this object is literally older than humanity. Tyson emphasized that we are talking about an interstellar comet that likely condensed out of a protoplanetary disk long before the Sun ignited, so in a very literal sense it is older than us as a species and older than the world we inhabit. In that discussion, he used the phrase “older than us” not as a flourish but as a way to capture the gulf between human timescales and the billions of years over which 3I/ATLAS has been traveling, a framing that the recap of their conversation with Cox underscores by correcting the exact figures they tossed around on air.
Cox, for his part, leaned into the same theme but with a slightly different emphasis, focusing on how the age and size estimates for 3I/ATLAS compare with familiar Solar System benchmarks. He acknowledged that it is difficult to recall precise numbers in a live discussion, which is why later coverage clarified the object’s approximate dimensions relative to our largest gas giant, Jupiter, and corrected any off the cuff slips. What matters in their exchange is that both Tyson and Cox treated 3I/ATLAS as a messenger from a time before Earth, a body that has been orbiting the galaxy since long before Homo sapiens emerged, and that will continue on long after our species is gone, which is why they kept returning to the idea that it is older than us in every meaningful sense.
Brian Cox’s “remarkable” age estimate
In a separate appearance, Brian Cox drilled down on what he found most remarkable about 3I/ATLAS, and it was not the alien speculation but the age estimate. He pointed to work suggesting that the comet might have formed around seven and a half billion years ago, a figure that would make it significantly older than the 4.6 billion year age of the Solar System and therefore a relic from an earlier generation of stars. Cox highlighted that there was an estimate a couple of days before he spoke that put the formation time at roughly seven and a half billion years, and he stressed how extraordinary it is to be able to say that about a specific object passing through our skies, a point captured in coverage of his remark that “There’s an estimate a couple of days ago that it might have formed seven and a half billion years ago”.
For Cox, that number is not just a statistic, it is a way of reframing our place in time. If 3I/ATLAS really did condense out of dust and gas seven and a half billion years ago, then it predates Earth by nearly three billion years and has been wandering interstellar space since long before any of the familiar constellations took shape. He contrasted that immensity with the brevity of human history, noting that our entire technological civilization spans barely more than a hundred years, from the first powered flight to the era of space telescopes capable of tracking an object like this. That juxtaposition, between a comet older than the Solar System and a species that has only just learned to notice it, is what he called remarkable.
From data to drama: how alien spaceship theories took off
As soon as 3I/ATLAS was confirmed as an interstellar object, the online rumor mill did what it always does and began to spin up theories that it might be an alien spacecraft. The combination of a hyperbolic trajectory, an origin beyond the Solar System and a poorly constrained shape created fertile ground for speculation that some advanced civilization had sent a probe or ark our way. Into that environment stepped Astrophysicist Brian Cox, who found himself not only explaining the science but also responding to claims that the comet was an engineered object with hidden intentions, a role that coverage of his comments on Astrophysicist Brian Cox and ATLAS lays out in detail.
Professor Bri, as he is sometimes informally referred to, did not mince words in dismissing the idea that 3I/ATLAS is anything other than a natural comet. He pointed people toward what he described as reliable sources that explain why the object’s brightness, spectrum and motion are consistent with a chunk of ice and rock rather than a constructed vehicle, and he underscored that the burden of proof lies with those claiming an artificial origin. Theories that it is a spacecraft, he argued, ignore the fact that interstellar comets are a predicted consequence of planetary system formation and that 3I/ATLAS fits comfortably within that framework, which is why he has been so firm in pushing back on the alien spaceship narrative.
Loeb, intentions and the allure of malign or benign visitors
One reason the alien narrative around 3I/ATLAS has been so persistent is the involvement of Avi Loeb, a scientist who has previously argued that another interstellar object might have been an artificial probe. In the case of 3I/ATLAS, Loeb and his group have again raised the possibility that the comet could be a spacecraft, prompting Cox to respond directly to the way these claims are framed. Cox noted that when people talk about an object like this as a potential alien craft, they often leap immediately to questions about its intentions, whether it is here to help or to harm, rather than first asking whether there is any evidence that it is artificial at all, a dynamic captured in reporting that quotes him saying, “First, that its intentions are entirely benign and second, they are malign,” in reference to how such debates are often structured around Loeb and his group.
By highlighting that rhetorical move, Cox is making a broader point about how we project our hopes and fears onto cosmic phenomena. The idea that 3I/ATLAS might have benign intentions taps into a long tradition of imagining wise, older civilizations visiting us as mentors, while the fear that it might be malign reflects anxieties about invasion and annihilation. Cox’s intervention is to pull the conversation back to the data, reminding audiences that there is no credible evidence that this comet is anything other than a natural object and that speculating about its intentions is premature at best and misleading at worst. In doing so, he is not only countering Loeb’s specific claims but also pushing back against a broader cultural habit of turning every unexplained signal into a story about us.
What the observations actually show about 3I/ATLAS
Behind the public debate, astronomers have been quietly building a detailed picture of 3I/ATLAS from telescopic observations across multiple wavelengths. They have measured its brightness over time, tracked how it responds to solar heating and looked for any signs of non gravitational acceleration that might hint at outgassing or, in the most speculative scenarios, propulsion. The emerging consensus is that its behavior is entirely consistent with a natural comet, with a coma and tail produced by sublimating ices and a trajectory that can be explained by gravity and standard cometary physics, a conclusion that has been emphasized in coverage noting that scientists have debunked the claims that it is an alien craft and that There has been widespread speculation about ATLAS, but scientists have debunked the claims.
Those same observations also feed into the age estimates that so fascinate Cox and Tyson. By modeling the comet’s composition and comparing it with known populations of icy bodies, researchers can infer the kind of environment in which it formed and how long it has likely been traveling through interstellar space. The suggestion that it might be around seven and a half billion years old comes from such modeling, which points to an origin in an older stellar system whose debris was later ejected into the galaxy. That is why scientists are so confident in treating 3I/ATLAS as a natural relic from a bygone era rather than a recent construction, and why the focus in the professional community is on what it can tell us about planet formation rather than on hypothetical alien intentions.
Why a seven and a half billion year old comet matters for humanity
When I think about whether 3I/ATLAS could outdate humanity, I am really thinking about how its timescale dwarfs ours and what that does to our sense of urgency. If the comet did form seven and a half billion years ago, then it has already survived multiple generations of stars, countless close encounters with other systems and eons of exposure to cosmic rays, yet it remains intact enough for us to study. Humanity, by contrast, has existed as a distinct species for only a few hundred thousand years, and our industrial civilization for barely more than a century, a blink compared with the comet’s journey. That contrast forces a kind of humility, reminding us that the dramas of our politics and technologies unfold on a timescale that is almost invisible against the backdrop of objects like 3I/ATLAS.
At the same time, the fact that we can detect, track and analyze such an ancient object says something hopeful about our species. In just a few generations, we have gone from wondering vaguely about “shooting stars” to building systems like Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System that can spot an interstellar comet as it enters the inner Solar System and trigger a global scientific response. That capability is not just a curiosity, it is part of how we might one day protect ourselves from real impact threats and perhaps even send our own probes into interstellar space. In that sense, 3I/ATLAS does not just outdate humanity, it challenges us to imagine a future in which our descendants are still around, billions of years from now, to encounter other relics like it.
Relic versus visitor: how language shapes our expectations
The way we talk about 3I/ATLAS, whether as a relic or a visitor, shapes how we interpret its significance. Calling it a relic emphasizes its age and passivity, a frozen archive of conditions from a time before Earth that happens to be drifting through our neighborhood. Describing it as a visitor, by contrast, invites us to imagine agency and intention, which is part of why alien spacecraft theories gain traction so quickly. Tyson and Cox have both leaned toward the relic framing, stressing that the comet is a piece of natural history rather than a technological emissary, and that our job is to read its record rather than to negotiate with it.
I find that distinction useful because it keeps the focus on what we can actually learn. As a relic, 3I/ATLAS offers clues about how common planetary systems are, how often they eject material into interstellar space and what kinds of chemistry unfold in the cold between the stars. Those are questions that tie directly into our own origins and into the likelihood that life has emerged elsewhere, even if this particular object is not a vehicle for that life. Treating it as a visitor with intentions, on the other hand, tends to short circuit that inquiry by turning the comet into a mirror for our hopes and fears, which is precisely what Cox was warning against when he mocked the rush to label its intentions as benign or malign.
What 3I/ATLAS tells us about our future in the galaxy
Looking ahead, 3I/ATLAS offers a preview of the kind of traffic the Solar System may experience over cosmic timescales and of the role humanity might play in that larger flow. Interstellar comets like this are probably common, the natural byproducts of planetary systems shedding debris, and as our detection capabilities improve we are likely to find many more. Each one will carry its own history of formation and ejection, and together they will map out the processes that shape planetary systems across the galaxy. In that sense, 3I/ATLAS is not unique, it is simply the first such object we have been able to study in this much detail, a harbinger of a new era in which interstellar visitors become routine scientific targets.
For humanity, the challenge is to decide what to do with that opportunity. We can treat objects like 3I/ATLAS as passing curiosities, or we can use them as stepping stones toward a more interstellar mindset, one that sees our species as part of a much larger and older ecosystem of stars, planets and debris. The fact that this comet is older than the Solar System and will continue on long after Earth is gone does not diminish our significance, it contextualizes it, reminding us that our choices in the coming centuries will determine whether we remain a brief flare in cosmic history or become a civilization that endures long enough to send out relics of its own. In that way, the true lesson of 3I/ATLAS is not that it outdates humanity, but that it invites us to imagine a future in which humanity lasts long enough to meet many more such ancient travelers.
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