The Judgment of Stardust

On July 2, 2025, local European time, the European Space Agency announced that astronomers had observed an object that might have come from outside the solar system approaching the Sun. That same day, the Minor Planet Center of the International Astronomical Union officially confirmed that 3I/Atlas was the third interstellar object ever discovered by humanity. Traveling at 60 kilometers per second from the direction of Sagittarius, 3I/Atlas is expected to reach perihelion on October 29 and pass Earth on December 7, then gradually recede from the solar system over the following years, eventually returning to interstellar space. NASA says 3I/Atlas poses no threat to Earth. But then, the unexpected happened...