Mysterious ‘heartbeat’ pulsating from 3I/ATLAS as it nears Earth,
The mysterious interstellar object 3I/ATLAS has developed a strange ‘heartbeat’ that’s making it glow more brightly as it nears Earth in just two weeks.
New telescope observations revealed streams of gas and dust, called jets, blasting out in rhythmic bursts every 16.16 hours precisely, much like a steady heartbeat.
Moreover, this pulsing makes the object’s overall glow brighten and dim by 20 to 40 percent in a clean, repeating cycle, which some have claimed suggest 3I/ATLAS is not a naturally-occurring comet.
NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) have both declared to be a lifeless comet, saying that they have not detected any signs of extraterrestrial life emanating from the object.
The natural explanation for these new pulses is that the object’s solid core spins once every 16.16 hours, with pockets of ice on its surface heating up and turning directly into gas when they face the sun, shooting out the jets like clockwork.
This is believed to happen because the Sun’s warmth hits those exact ice spots at the same point in each spin, blasting material outward at about 985mph and spraying the timed bursts over distances up to roughly 15,900 miles.
While the comet’s spin has provided a convenient reason for the precise timing, Harvard Professor Avi Loeb pointed out that it still doesn’t explain the glowing pulses coming from the object as it makes it closest pas by Earth on December 19.
Loeb noted that the pulsations of light were strange because almost all the light telescopes saw comes from the coma, an enormous cloud of gas and dust that can stretch hundreds of thousands of miles, not from the object’s dark rocky center.
If the core is the only thing spinning and shooting out bursts, the giant cloud should have acted like a big soft blanket that washes out or dilutes the sharp flashes.
Loeb explained that, in that case, the overall brightness would barely wiggle, possibly increasing by up to five percent instead of the much larger and brighter flashes telescopes have actually seen.
The astrophysicist and UFO researcher suggested this could be another sign 3I/ATLAS is an unnatural object because the strong, heartbeat-like pulsing doesn’t fit the usual picture of a simple comet from space.
He has previously noted 12 anomalies that scientists have yet to fully explain, including a cometary tail pointing in the wrong direction, the object turning blue near the sun, and course changes that defy gravity.
NASA has dismissed any irregularities being recorded as a byproduct of the object coming from a distant solar system likely composed of a completely different chemical makeup than comets from our own system.
The pulsations were discovered by astronomers carefully measuring how the object’s glow brightened and dimmed over time using ground-based telescopes, with the repeating 16.16-hour pattern first reported in a scientific paper in August 2025.
The ‘heartbeat’ of 3I/ATLAS is believed to have been pulsing since at least the object entered our solar system, potentially for weeks or months before its discovery, as they tie to its ongoing spin and sun-heating process.
Although NASA and the United Nations has said the supposed comet poses no threat to Earth and will only get within 170 million miles on December 19, researchers are using the close pass to prepare for future cosmic threats.
The UN confirmed that Earth’s planetary defenses started observing the interstellar object on November 27 as it exits the solar system.
A global team of scientists with the International Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN) kicked off the two–month campaign, which may help improve comet and asteroid surveillance that spots future threats nearing Earth.
Although the overwhelming consensus has been that 3I/ATLAS is a comet, Loeb has said that scientists should not dismiss the possibility that the object could be technological.
‘Here we are talking about a potential for something that could affect humanity in the future in a dramatic way, and so you shouldn’t apply the same approach of being as conservative as possible,’ Loeb told the Daily Mail in October.
