Category: 7. Science

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The newly discovered interstellar object 3I/ATLAS could be a piece of “possibly hostile” extraterrestrial technology in disguise, according to controversial research from a small group of scientists, including a renowned alien-hunting astronomer.

Their paper, which has not been peer-reviewed, echoes similar claims previously made about ‘Oumuamua, the first-ever cosmic interloper that was discovered in 2017.

But experts have told Live Science that the new claims are “nonsense” and “insulting,” and insist that the available evidence points toward the object being completely natural.

3I/ATLAS was discovered on July 1 barreling toward the sun at more than 130,000 mph (210,000 km/h), and was confirmed to be an interstellar object less than 24 hours later. Initial observations strongly suggest it is a large comet surrounded by a cloud of ice, gas and dust called a coma, stretching up to 15 miles (24 kilometers) across. A computer model simulating where it originated from hinted that it could be up to 3 billion years older than our solar system, potentially making it the oldest comet ever seen.

But in a new paper, uploaded July 16 to the preprint server arXiv, a trio of researchers have questioned whether the comet is actually some form of covert alien tech sent here by an advanced, potentially aggressive extraterrestrial civilization.

The researchers described the new paper as a “pedagogical exercise,” or thought experiment, and offer no clear evidence of alien involvement. Instead, they point at the comet’s “anomalous characteristics” and provide alternative theories to explain them.

The study’s most notable author is Avi Loeb, an astronomer at Harvard University who is renowned for linking extraterrestrial objects to intelligent aliens. He is the head of the Galileo Project, which is attempting to detect evidence of technosignatures and UFOs. In 2023, he led a controversial expedition that claimed to have collected pieces of possible alien tech left behind by an unconfirmed interstellar meteorite in the Pacific Ocean. (These claims have since been largely debunked by outside researchers).

Loeb was also the primary researcher who claimed that the unusual shape and non-gravitational acceleration of the interstellar object ‘Oumuamua were signs that it was an alien probe.

Today, the general consensus is that ‘Oumuamua was an asteroid that was leaking gas into space, similar to a comet. However, Loeb and his colleagues have continued to advocate its potential alien origin and have proposed missions to track down the wandering space rock.

Loeb’s co-authors for the new study are both associated with the Initiative for Interstellar Studies (i4is), a U.K. institute dedicated to planning future missions to alien star systems.

In a blog post explaining the new paper, Loeb wrote that if 3I/ATLAS is a “technological artifact” it could be evidence of the dark forest hypothesis, which argues that the reason we have not found evidence of extraterrestrial life is that they are staying silent to remain invisible to potential predators or prey.

“The consequences, should the hypothesis turn out to be correct, could potentially be dire for humanity, and would possibly require defensive measures to be undertaken,” he wrote.

Alien ‘evidence’

Most of the points laid out in the new paper relate to the unusual trajectory of 3I/ATLAS. The object is moving significantly faster than the only other known interstellar objects — ‘Oumuamua and Comet Borisov, which was spotted in 2019 — and has entered the solar system at a different angle from its predecessors, approaching the sun side-on relative to our star’s orbit through the Milky Way.

Loeb wrote that the object’s trajectory “offers various benefits to an extraterrestrial intelligence” that may be using it to subtly spy on Earth. One such benefit is that 3I/ATLAS will make relatively close approaches to three planets: Jupiter, Mars and Venus. And the minimum distances between the object and these worlds could enable aliens to discretely deploy “gadgets” there, Loeb wrote.

3I/ATLAS will also be hidden on the opposite side of the sun to Earth when it reaches its closest point to our home star in late October. “This could be intentional to avoid detailed observations from Earth-based telescopes when the object is brightest or when gadgets are sent to Earth from that hidden vantage point,” Loeb wrote.

The unusually high speed of 3I/ATLAS also makes it very hard to launch a spacecraft to intercept it before it exits the solar system, which could be another potential sign of clandestine alien activity, the researchers argued.

Based on its current speed, Loeb also noted that 3I/ATLAS would have entered the outer boundaries of the solar system around 8,000 years ago, which is “roughly when human-made technologies became advanced enough to start documenting history on Earth.” Although, it is unclear what he is trying to imply by saying this.

The researchers also argued that there is insufficient evidence to show conclusively that 3I/ATLAS is a comet, especially as researchers are yet to identify any “volatiles,” or specific chemicals associated with comets, within its coma.

Controversial claims

Since 3I/ATLAS was discovered, researchers have been trying to identify it, and so far, the overwhelming consensus is that it is a comet.

“There have been numerous telescopic observations of 3I/ATLAS demonstrating that it’s displaying classical signatures of cometary activity,” Darryl Seligman, an astronomer at Michigan State University who led the first study quantifying 3I/ATLAS, told Live Science in an email.

“All evidence points to this being an ordinary comet that was ejected from another solar system, just as countless billions of comets have been ejected from our own solar system,” added Samantha Lawler, an astronomer at the University of Regina in Canada who specializes in solar system dynamics.

Any assumptions about the object’s lack of volatiles is also premature at this time. “The object is still pretty far away from the sun, so no, we wouldn’t typically expect to find direct evidence of volatiles necessarily,” Seligman said. Instead, these compounds will likely become apparent in the coming weeks and months, he added.

Loeb admits that the alien technology scenario is a long shot: “By far, the most likely outcome will be that 3I/ATLAS is a completely natural interstellar object, probably a comet,” he wrote in the blog post.

Given the available evidence, many of the researchers who spoke to Live Science are disappointed with the new paper and pointed out that it distracts from the work of other scientists.

“Astronomers all around the world have been thrilled at the arrival of 3I/ATLAS, collaborating to use advanced telescopes to learn about this visitor,” Chris Lintott, an astronomer at the University of Oxford who was part of the team that simulated 3I/ATLAS’s galactic origins, told Live Science in an email. “Any suggestion that it’s artificial is nonsense on stilts, and is an insult to the exciting work going on to understand this object.”

RELATED STORIES

— Interstellar invader Comet 3I/ATLAS is packed with water ice that could be older than Earth

— New interstellar object 3I/ATLAS: Everything we know about the rare cosmic visitor

— Telescope spies rare interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS zooming through our solar system (photos)

Loeb is no stranger to this type of criticism and has defended his position, writing that “the hypothesis is an interesting exercise in its own right, and is fun to explore, irrespective of its likely validity.”

However, while it is important to remain open-minded about any “testable prediction,” the new paper pushes this sentiment to the limit, Lawler told Live Science in an email. “In my experience, the vast majority of scientists subscribe to the idea that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and the evidence presented is absolutely not extraordinary.”

This story was provided by Live Science, a sister site of Space.com.

Cataracts remain one of the most prevalent and debilitating eye conditions, often requiring surgical intervention to restore sight. Yet even after surgery, many patients develop anterior subcapsular cataracts (ASC), characterized by fibrotic tissue growth beneath the lens capsule. This complication arises from epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), a process where lens epithelial cells acquire migratory, fibrotic traits. While transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-β) is known to drive this transition, the downstream molecular mechanisms remain elusive. Emerging evidence suggests that transcription factors like NR2F1 may play a role in fibrosis across tissues. Due to these challenges, there is a pressing need to investigate molecular regulators that drive EMT and fibrotic cataracts.

In a recent study (DOI: 10.1016/j.gendis.2025.101549) led by scientists at Chongqing Medical University and Chongqing General Hospital, researchers uncovered a novel regulatory axis driving cataract-associated fibrosis. The findings, published on January 28, 2025, in Genes & Diseases, reveal that NR2F1 promotes fibrosis by directly activating the STAT3 signaling pathway. Using both TGF-β1-treated human lens epithelial cells and a mouse model of ASC, the team discovered that defective autophagy boosts NR2F1 protein accumulation, fueling cell death and fibrotic plaque formation. The research not only identifies a new molecular mechanism behind cataract progression but also highlights potential therapeutic targets for intervention.

The researchers began by confirming elevated NR2F1 protein levels in cataract-affected lens tissues and TGF-β1-stimulated human lens epithelial cells. While mRNA levels of NR2F1 dropped, its protein levels rose—suggesting post-transcriptional dysregulation. Further investigation revealed that impaired autophagy, a cellular cleanup process, was responsible for NR2F1 protein buildup. Blocking autophagy in cells mimicked the TGF-β1 effect, reinforcing this link.

Functionally, silencing NR2F1 dramatically suppressed the EMT process, reduced expression of fibrotic markers (FN1, VIM, α-SMA), and curbed cell migration and apoptosis. In ASC mouse models, injection of an NR2F1-silencing AAV led to visibly clearer lenses and fewer fibrotic plaques. Mechanistic experiments revealed that NR2F1 directly binds to the promoter of STAT3, triggering its phosphorylation and downstream activation.

The team validated the significance of this interaction by using a p-STAT3 inhibitor, which successfully reduced fibrotic and apoptotic markers. These findings suggest that the NR2F1-STAT3 axis is a central driver of fibrosis in cataract formation, operating through autophagy disruption and transcriptional reprogramming. This dual insight—both mechanistic and therapeutic—provides a promising direction for combating fibrotic cataracts beyond current surgical solutions.

Our study uncovers a critical link between autophagy dysfunction and fibrotic cataract formation. By identifying NR2F1 as a direct activator of the STAT3 pathway, we’ve revealed a powerful mechanism that fuels lens fibrosis and cell death. What’s most exciting is the translational potential—by blocking this pathway, we were able to significantly reverse cataract symptoms in animal models. This opens up new possibilities for non-surgical therapies targeting the root molecular causes of lens opacification.”

Prof. Wenjuan Wan, senior author of the study

The identification of the NR2F1-STAT3 signaling pathway as a driver of cataract-associated fibrosis holds significant clinical potential. Current treatments rely heavily on surgery, yet fibrotic complications frequently recur and impair long-term outcomes. By targeting NR2F1, it may be possible to develop pharmaceutical agents that prevent fibrosis at the molecular level—either as stand-alone therapies or as adjuncts to surgery. Beyond cataracts, the NR2F1-STAT3 axis may also be relevant to other fibrotic diseases, offering broad implications across fields like oncology and tissue regeneration. Continued research is essential to validate these findings in clinical settings and to translate them into patient-centered solutions.

One of the driving personalities behind the Hubble Space Telescope is sounding the alarm on president Donald Trump’s disastrous space policy.

That former NASA associate administrator for spaceflight is Joe Rothenberg, who warns that the agency’s current predicament — mass layoffs and deferred resignations resulting in a loss of 20 percent of its workforce and a complete overhaul of agency culture — may already be too bad to fix.

“What is happening at NASA has long term and potentially unrecoverable consequences to US scientific and technology leadership in not only space but in technology that impacts our quality of life on Earth,” Rothenberg said on a LinkedIn post from former NASA astrobiologist and current policy watcher Keith Cowing.

This second Trump Administration and the brass it’s put in charge of NASA have, as the former Hubble operations manager put it, “mortgaged America’s space and scientific research capabilities.” According to Rothenberg, NASA may now be “well beyond the point of being able to be recovered by any potential restoration of funding by Congress.”

A longtime veteran of both the private and public spaceflight worlds, Rothenberg, who began his career at Grumman Aerospace six decades ago and who now sits on the boards of multiple private aerospace companies, recalled that NASA “in its early days inspired career pursuits in science and engineering.”

As a result, the United States became a leader not only in space exploration, but in “developing technology that has significantly improved medical, communications, and numerous quality of life applications.”

With Trump’s increasingly successful gutting of the agency and “indiscriminate cuts in our nation’s scientific research program budgets,” Rothenberg warns that the United States “now faces the strong possibility of the reverse happening,” with would-be engineers and scientists being discouraged from entering the industry in the first place, creating cascading decades of lost opportunity for America’s space efforts.

Indeed, we’ve already seen a trend of both fledgling and established scientists considering fleeing the US over Trump’s disastrous policies — and to Rothenberg’s mind, that ripple effect may continue well into the future.

In his “America First” quest, Rothenberg argues, Trump has weakened “our economic and military leadership” — and hurt the country’s status in the global space race, too.

More on Trump’s space policy: NASA Employees Submit “Formal Dissent” Saying Trump’s Cuts Are So Brutal That Astronauts Could Die

Don’t miss the waxing crescent moon shine alongside Spica and the stars of the constellation Virgo in the hours following sunset on July 30.

Look 20 degrees above the southwestern horizon in the hour following sunset on July 30 to find the waxing crescent moon — now 32% lit — hanging in the evening sky, with Spica shining as a bright point of light less than 4 degrees to the upper left of the lunar disk. Remember, the span of your clenched fist held at arms length is approximately 10 degrees in the night sky, while the tip of your little finger measures roughly 1 degree!

Researchers have discovered a 400-mile-long chain of extinct, fossilized volcanoes buried deep below South China. The volcanoes formed when two tectonic plates collided during the breakup of the supercontinent Rodinia hundreds of millions of years ago, the scientists reported in a new study. The ancient volcanoes extend the region of past volcanism in this area by several hundred miles and may have affected Earth’s climate.

About 800 million years ago, during the early Neoproterozoic era, South China sat at the northwestern margin of Rodinia. Shifting plate tectonics caused this area to break off into what is now the Yangtze Block plate, pushing it toward the China Ocean plate. As the two plates collided, the denser oceanic crust sank beneath the more buoyant continental crust and slid deep into Earth — a process known as subduction.

Accurate surface rotation measurements are crucial to estimate stellar ages and improve our understanding of stellar rotational evolution.

Comparisons of datasets obtained from different space missions on common targets represent in this sense a way to explore the respective biases and reliability of the considered instruments, as well as a possibility to perform a more in-depth investigation of the properties of the observed stars.

In this perspective, we aim at using observations for the K2 mission to provide an external validation to Gaia rotation measurements, and confront observables available from Gaia, K2, and Kepler.

We therefore crossmatch the Gaia rotation catalogue and the K2 mission Ecliptic Plane Input Catalogue (EPIC) in order to find Gaia stars with both measured rotation and periods and available K2 light curves. Using our crossmatch, we analyse 1063 light curves from the K2 mission in order to characterise stellar rotational modulations and compare the recovered periods with Gaia reference values.

The K2/Gaia cross-validated sample is used as a random-forest classifier training set to identify a subsample of Gaia stars with similar properties. We validate the Gaia rotation measurements for a large fraction of the sample and we discuss the possible origin of the discrepancies between some K2 and Gaia measurements.

We note that the K2 sample does not include members of the low-activity ultra-fast-rotating (UFR) population that was highlighted by Gaia observations, a feature that we explain considering the instrumental capabilities of K2. Placing our sample in perspective with the full Gaia rotation catalogues and Kepler observations, we show that the population for which both Gaia and K2 are able to measure rotation is composed of young late-type stars, a significant fraction of which is not yet converged on the slow-rotator gyrochronological sequence. [abridged]

Sylvain N. Breton, Elisa Distefano, Alessandro C. Lanzafame, Dinil B. Palakkatharappil

Comments: 15 pages, 19 figures. Accepted for publication in A&A
Subjects: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)
Cite as: arXiv:2507.20909 [astro-ph.SR] (or arXiv:2507.20909v1 [astro-ph.SR] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2507.20909
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Submission history
From: Sylvain Breton
[v1] Mon, 28 Jul 2025 15:02:38 UTC (7,338 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.20909
Astrobiology, Astrochemistry,