Day 22186

It is a testament to our times that a weird, exploding comet trucking through the solar system does not get much attention.

If you hadn’t heard, the comet 3I/Atlas has been touring the solar system, even sweeping close to Earth. What’s interesting about this comet is that it came from outside the Sol system, the third such time that has occurred.

On July 1, the Asteroid Terrestrial-Impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) spotted something out there, which was quickly determined to have been an interstellar object. Astronomers determined that it was most likely a comet, which is essentially just rocks and ice and such compressed into a ball. It was only the third time an interstellar object had been spotted in the neighborhood, hence the 3I designation.

That’s when Avi Loeb entered the picture. Some may not remember Loeb, a professor and theoretical physicist. The last time an interstellar object found its way into the solar system Loeb warned that we should be careful because it could be an alien spaceship. He was back at it with 3I/ATLAS, pointing out that it wasn’t really acting like a comet.

Of course, the scientific community and much of the world is laughing at Loeb, who has been speculating about the possibility of alien visitors for years. It didn’t help that both Joe Rogan and Kim Kardashian have chimed in on all of this. This has caused “serious” scientists to get a little huffy about these ridiculous theories.

From what I’ve read, 3I/ATLAS is obviously just some junk floating around in space. There is obviously so much about the universe we do not understand, but if it has a similar pattern to what we see here on Earth, you can bet it is all mostly banal.

That’s why we pay a little closer attention when someone posits that a rock floating around in space might be an alien ship. That we crave to find aliens just proves that there is indeed a loneliness epidemic here on Earth.

Life can be pretty routine, so we should embrace things like a possible alien ship swinging through the solar system. We should enjoy the show and maybe hope that folks might educate themselves about the universe.