Comet 3I/ATLAS can 'wipe out an entire continent?': SpaceX CEO's stunning claim as mystery around interstellar object deepens

Manhattan-sized interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS has sparked a lot of curiosity among scientists and astronomers. Astronomers have captured the first optical image of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS after its close pass by the Sun. This rare cosmic visitor, travelling at immense speed, is now visible through amateur telescopes, and scientists are trying to study its composition as it moves away.

The unusual maneuvering of comet 3I/ATLAS, like how it was flying suspiciously close to Jupiter, Venus and Mars, led some to believe it could be an extraterrestrial spacecraft. The comet briefly disappeared from view as it slingshotted around the sun, reaching perihelion on Thursday (October 29) at 1.4 astronomical units—130 million miles (210 million kilometres)—from our star.

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Elon Musk on comet 3I/ATLAS

On a recent episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast, although totally unsure, Elon Musk agreed the comet could be “aliens,” since something beyond gravity is affecting its trajectory. Elon Musk said he is certain that because of its huge size and nickel composition, the 3I/ATLAS object — which might even be a spaceship — has the power to “wipe out an entire continent, or possibly worse.”


“It’s a real problem if it hits,” Rogan said to a nodding Musk, “Probably kill most of human life.” “It depends on what the total mass is,” Musk said to the podcast host. “The thing is, in the fossil record, there’s arguably five major extinction events, like the biggest one of which is the Permian extinction, where almost all life was eliminated, that actually occurred over several million years.”

“There’s the Jurassic, I think that one’s pretty definitely an asteroid… but what they don’t count are the ones that merely take out a continent because those don’t really show up on the fossil record,” the businessman said.

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“So, unless it’s enough to cause a mass extinction event throughout Earth, it doesn’t show up in a fossil record that’s 200 million years old. So there have been many impacts that would have sort of destroyed all life on half of North America or something like that through the course of history,” he added. “And there’s nothing we could do about it right now,” a shocked Rogan responded. NASA initially assured that the comet would safely pass Earth at a distance of about 170 million miles, posing no threat to the planet.

But according to a recent blog post by Harvard scientist Avi Loeb, ATLAS’s altered path could suggest something unusual. Loeb wrote that the “non-gravitational acceleration might be the technological signature of an internal engine,” which could also explain why the comet has appeared brighter and bluer as it moves closer to the Sun.

First pictures of comet taken from Mars

Scientists say the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS has been photographed from Mars by China’s Tianwen‑1 orbiter, according to a India Today report. The images show a bright coma (the glowing cloud around the nucleus) and a solid icy core several hundred metres to under a kilometre in size.

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The comet passed close to Mars on October 3 2025, with a closest approach of about 28 million km (≈0.19 AU). Because the object is on a trajectory not bound to the Sun, and shows active gas emissions, scientists classify it as truly interstellar—coming from beyond our Solar System. While online speculation has likened comet 3I/ATLAS to an “alien spaceship,” researchers caution it is far more likely a natural object — a rare messenger from deep space that offers a chance to study material formed around other stars.