Comet C/2025 K1 (ATLAS)
While Comet 3I/ATLAS steals all the headlines, a much better-looking comet, officially dubbed "C/2025 K1 (ATLAS)" is quietly passing over us to the north, on its way back toward the far reaches of the solar system. Although K1 ATLAS had remarkably close fly-bys of Venus and Mercury on the inbound portion of its journey around the sun, nobody has accused it of being an alien spacecraft, setting its own course, and trying to collect information about our solar system.
Both of these comets have at least one thing in common. They're both called "ATLAS" because they were discovered by the same survey group known as "Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System" (or, ATLAS). A lot of comets, in fact, share that name, because ATLAS has been a very prolific discovery machine! Remember, for instance, Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS? That one was co-discovered by China's Purple Mountain Observatory and ATLAS. Incidentally, Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS also had a very noticeable anti-tail (sunward pointing), yet nobody accused it of turning on its engines to change course!
Ah! I miss the days when comets were comets. In those days, it was the amateurs and non-astronomers (remember Heaven's Gate and Hale-Bopp?) who occasionally became enraptured by conspiracy theories, while the professional astronomers were the level-headed ones, assuring us that these striking celestial objects are natural wanderers of the solar system, whose only real threat to earth and its inhabitants is through direct collision with it. Neither 3I/ATLAS nor K1 ATLAS have posed any impact threats to earth.
Contrast that with today, when it's the professional Harvard astronomer who's rallying the troops to believe in aliens. Oh, well. I digress.
Remember in my previous post, when I said that one of the things that made 3I/ATLAS appear odd to us was its trajectory? Being more distant from the sun than earth when it reached perihelion meant that 3I/ATLAS didn't heat up as much as a lot of other comets, making it rather unspectacular by comparison. Well, K1 ATLAS proves my point. Take a look at this screen capture of its orbit from JPL's Small-Body Database Lookup website.
Comet K1 ATLAS crossed over earth's orbit, Venus' orbit, and Mercury's orbit, as it rounded the sun at an incredibly close distance of only 30 million miles! And now as it passes by us on the outbound leg, K1 ATLAS is sporting a beautiful tail. This is not surprising to us. The intense energy of the sun felt by K1 ATLAS at a perihelion distance of only 30 million miles, compared to 3I/ATLAS' more-distant perihelion of 125 million miles, can make a lot of exciting changes to a comet's appearance.
What changes am I talking about? Well, that more intense radiation caused a much higher degree of outgassing and dust release by K1 ATLAS, which makes the tail much longer. We love it when comets have long tails, don't we? By comparison, 3I/ATLAS looked like a boring football in my photo.
But the sun's intense heating did something even more exciting to K1 ATLAS than just making a long tail! The comet actually fractured! It split into at least four pieces that were noted by large telescopes. In my tiny telescope using a 15-second exposure, I could spot only two fragments. See below.
This is one of the most difficult contradictions to grapple with: when scientists, with their stalwart and healthy skepticism, who constantly remind us to stay calm, to be sensible and use Occam's razor, suddenly and inexplicably suspend their demand for proof. And it's not just conspiracy theorists. Somehow there exist people who can compartmentalize their understanding of the universe. They find ways to hold firm to both their religious faith and their love of science, even though the very core of religious faith (and conspiracy theory) is antithetical to the core of the scientific method.
Indeed, the more we learn about the universe, the more contradictions we find. Often times, that means there is something that we've misunderstood. I think, however, that the deeper, more stubborn contradictions are things we eventually must come to accept and perhaps embrace.
Contradictions make us better people. They motivate us to find solutions. They force us to be better thinkers, to keep studying, keep finding new ways to look at it. They give us hope, in an odd way. As if, since the case isn't closed, there's a chance that we'll one day figure it out. Maybe some unexpected event will occur that will enable us to find the solution. It's possible that a simple answer will reveal itself. One that we couldn't see because we were looking in the wrong place. Contradictions also humble us and make us honest. Contradictions lead us to reach out to others for help, which in turn promotes cooperation and breaking down borders.
I have to admit that I've been disappointed and maybe even a little angry with the Harvard guy over 3I/ATLAS. We're looking at the same data, yet he insists that it's aliens, whereas I insist that it's a natural object that is perhaps unusual. How do we know what is usual, when this is only the third interstellar visitor we've ever studied with such persistence and depth? If you scour the social media, you'll find outspoken people who come down on both sides of this contradiction. And, you know what? Both sides make good arguments and contribute to solving the puzzle. The debates get more people interested in the problem. We need that interaction, that communication.
If I'm honest with myself, I must admit to wishing that 3I/ATLAS could be a spacecraft sent by aliens. It would prove that we're not alone in the universe. That, of course, is arguably the greatest contradiction of all. Like the guy in Contact said (my paraphrase), "If the only life in the universe is here on earth, there's a whole lot of wasted space."
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