Scientists have detected the first radio signal from the space object 3I/ATLAS, which is heading toward Earth, The Astronomer's Telegram reported.
The MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa received the radio signal on October 24. Previous attempts to detect it in the same absorption lines from September 28, 2025 failed.
According to Harvard University scientist Avi Loeb, the Juno spacecraft is expected to attempt to detect a low-frequency radio signal from 3I/ATLAS on March 16 next year, when it passes by Jupiter.
3I/ATLAS was spotted on July 1. Scientists later determined that it was a comet from another solar system. Its coma (a cloud of gas and dust around its nucleus) is approximately 24 kilometers in diameter. A computer model estimates its age at over seven and a half billion years – three billion years older than the Sun. It may be the oldest comet ever observed.
In September, Loeb reported that 3I/ATLAS, an interstellar object passing through the solar system, had undergone an “anomalous evolution”, starting to change color.