![\"31\/ATLAS.\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/image-composed-multiple-exposures-provided-110694830_fa8042.jpg\")
NASA\u2019s official position is that 31\/ATLAS (pictured) does not pose a threat to Earth. AP<\/p>\n
Along with predicting the orbit, the so-called worldwide coalition of space experts will<\/a> \u201chold a workshop on techniques to correctly measure comet astrometry \u2014 a transformation without a change to a figure\u2019s shape or size, such as rotation or reflection. This will reportedly help form the blueprint for how we monitor comets and other or other asteroids that may pose a threat to our planet.<\/p>\n The organization noted that comets are hard to observe due to their tails and, because their tails and comas (a cloudlike atmosphere of gas and dust that encompasses its solid nucleus as it approaches the Sun). <\/p>\n This makes it hard to estimate their brightness, in turn impeding trajectory predictions, which allow us to know how close the comet will get to Earth.<\/p>\n Thankfully, the comet will reportedly come nowhere near us, but its proximity \u2014 roughly 1.8 sun-Earth distances \u2014 makes 31\/ATLAS visible to telescopes. IAWN is even urging citizen scientists to join the efforts, provided they register <\/a>no later than November 7. <\/p>\n While tracking comets and asteroids is a high priority given the potential danger, NASA\u2019s official position is that 31\/ATLAS does not pose a threat to Earth. <\/p>\n This runs contrary to theories spouted by Dr. Avi Loeb, a Harvard astrophysicist whose been tracking the interstellar object since its July discovery. <\/p>\n Loeb believed that 31\/ATLAS, which is the third interstellar object to enter our solar system, could be extraterrestrial in origin after exhibiting a host of characteristics that seemed to defy typical comet behavior.<\/p>\n These included an anti-tail \u2014 a jet of particles that points toward the sun instead of away from it as is standard \u2014 and that the fact that it was spouting a plume of four grams of nickel\u00a0<\/a>per second with no evidence of iron, a phenomenon unheard of in comets.<\/p>\n![\"Earth.\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/2002-shows-view-earth-seen-114355261.jpg\")
31\/ATLAS is coming nowhere close to home. NASA\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n