Trading Options for Alien Tech Avi Loeb 6 min read · 2 hours ago 2 hours ago — Listen Share

Co-added image of 3I/ATLAS from 30-second exposures by the NSF-DOE Rubin Observatory. Each pixel is 0.2 arcseconds in size. During each exposure, the object had moved 0.625 arcseconds (3.125 pixels) on July 2, 2025, resulting in apparent smearing of the image along the direction of motion. (Image credit: Chandler et al. 2025)

The research team of the new NSF-DOE Rubin Observatory just posted its first paper on 3I/ATLAS, reporting the first exquisite imaging data from an 8-meter class telescope, taken between June 21 and July 7, 2025. The Rubin data from 37 images of 3I/ATLAS yields a localization precision of about 0.02 arcseconds and a percent-level flux calibration, providing improved orbit solutions and showing no detectable flux variability on hourly timescales. The Rubin team recognized the elongation in their images as a result of smearing along the direction of motion of 3I/ATLAS (as noted in my previous essay), and detected a slight transverse broadening in the image of 3I/ATLAS beyond those of background stars. A coma around 3I/ATLAS might be much more apparent in forthcoming data from the Hubble and the Webb space telescopes.

Given the discovery potential of the Rubin Observatory, it is an opportune time to reflect on the decade-long history of the frontier of interstellar objects. Astronomers discovered 1I/`Oumuamua on October 19, 2017, then 2I/Borisov on August 20, 2019 and finally 3I/ATLAS on July 1, 2025. But the new NSF-DOE Rubin Observatory is expected to discover a new interstellar object every few months, harvesting multiple interstellar objects every year. So far, each discovery was assigned a unique name. But in Rubin’s harvest, new interstellar objects will have to be distinguished by their discovery date, potentially labeled as 4I/Rubin-022626 for the fourth interstellar object detected on February 26, 2026, for example.

For now, given the small number of known interstellar objects so far, we learn something fundamentally new from each of them. However, once our collection includes a large statistical sample, some groups of objects will belong to distinct classes, providing us with population statistics. There will always be outliers that do not resemble Solar System asteroids or comets. Among them, there might also be products of alien technologies, either in the form of space trash or functional devices.

Today, I received a text message from a fan who after reading my essays on 3I/ATLAS over the past couple of weeks, decided to place an options trade on the Volatility Index (VIX) of the S&P 500 index that will expire on October 29, 2025, the date when 3I/ATLAS will arrive closest to the Sun — just in case this will turn out to be a civilization altering event. This bet against market uncertainty is the first time that my scientific research, in this case my third paper on 3I/ATLAS, affects investor trading in the stock market.

But even if 3I/ATLAS will turn out to be a bright comet similar to 2I/Borisov as it gets closer to the Sun, time is ripe to plan ahead and establish a new academic discipline for the study of the geopolitical and scientific implications of future interstellar visitors. In particular, a new brand of interstellar archaeologists will study interstellar asteroids, comets and meteors to learn about the formation and ejection processes of rocks our of planetary systems around different types of stars. If they uncover technological artifacts among the rocks, these interstellar archaeologists will explore their implications for the history of intelligent civilizations in the Milky-Way galaxy.

One might expect space trash to be more abundant than functional devices based on experience. After all, our own young civilization launched five spacecraft: Voyager 1 & 2, Pioneer 10 & 11, and New Horizons, to interstellar space, but these devices will stop working by the time they exit the Oort cloud in about ten thousand years. However, a more mature civilization might aspire to launch functional interstellar probes that would explore other planetary systems to accomplish its ambitious long-term and long-distance goals. If functional devices were programmed to visit the habitable zone of the Solar System, then they might be more abundant near Earth than space trash on random trajectories. The interstellar archaeologists will be able to relate the statistics of space trash and functional devices near Earth to the technological maturity of the civilizations that launched them.

Our interaction with functional interstellar probes will require the expertise of policy makers and experts in international diplomacy, since any response must be coordinated internationally based on its economic and geopolitical implications. Given the long duration of interstellar journeys, our visitors might not have had us in mind when starting the journey unless their arrival is in response to the electromagnetic signals that we broadcasted over the past century. Any message from the sky that we are not the smartest kid on the block will have to be moderated by Interstellar psychologists in order to reduce its harmful impact on the human ego.

The skillset of this new cohort of interstellar professionals is needed to improve the survival likelihood of humanity when faced with a new reality from interstellar space. Before the past decade, humans were unaware of interstellar objects and this ignorance allowed us to focus our mind on terrestrial conflicts. Habits are difficult to break. The prophets of the day warn us of the existential threats from artificial intelligence, climate change or asteroid impacts. But they neglect the security risk from alien tech. When a visitor to our backyard would knock on our door, it might be too late to decide how to respond. Our family of nations will be in disarray because governments may not be able to protect their citizens from advanced interstellar technologies. Whether such a visit will take place in the near future or will not happen in the next billion years, is unknown. We better use the Rubin data to reliably manage our risks rather than guess the answer in a cosmic game of Russian roulette.

Our ability to cope with a threat from alien tech will depend on its intent and the extent of the gap between our technologies and theirs. As responsible scientists, we must abandon the “stone age” or “ice age” mindset of comet experts who assume that everything in the sky must be icy rocks. Interstellar archaeology can also be pursued on the surface of the Moon, which collected small impactors over the past billions of years without burning them in an atmosphere or burying them through geological activity.

Here’s hoping that our new ability to detect interstellar objects with the NSF-DOE Rubin Observatory, will cultivate cooperation among all humans as we carefully explore any new interstellar package in our mailbox. If any packages are dropped on Earth by the interstellar delivery service, the three new Galileo Project observatories will use Machine Learning software under my leadership to figure out their nature.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

(Image Credit: Chris Michel, National Academy of Sciences, 2023)

Avi Loeb is the head of the Galileo Project, founding director of Harvard University’s — Black Hole Initiative, director of the Institute for Theory and Computation at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and the former chair of the astronomy department at Harvard University (2011–2020). He is a former member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and a former chair of the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Academies. He is the bestselling author of “Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth” and a co-author of the textbook “Life in the Cosmos”, both published in 2021. The paperback edition of his new book, titled “Interstellar”, was published in August 2024.