만약 3I 아틀라스가 지구와 충돌한다면

Added: 2026-06-03

[00:00:01]This is a simulation of what would happen if an interstellar harbinger of doom smashed into Earth. That odd cigar-shaped asteroid is Muaam Mua.

[00:00:16]It's the first interstellar rock on record. Interstellar, which means it came to us from outside the solar system. And the sheer force of a collision with this rock would carve a crater the size of a city, vaporizing everything in its vicinity. But as far as interstellar rocks go, Muam Mua is not the worst. Meet comet Threeey Atlas.

[00:00:45]While Mua Mua is big, ThreeI Atlas might be 14 times bigger, which means 14 times the impact, 14 times the crater, 14 times the vaporization, or more. We'll get into the physics of it later. A collision with this rock would release the same kind of energy that a certain other asteroid did 66 million years ago, ending the reign of the dinosaurs.

[00:01:15]killing nearly everything on Earth. This means that if three eye atlas struck Earth today, we're talking an extinction level event.

[00:01:32]Now, to better understand three atlas, let's take another look at Muam Mua.

[00:01:38]Like I said, omua mua was the first object we've ever confirmed to be visiting us from outside of our solar system. Roughly translated from Hawaiian Muam Mua means a messenger from afar arriving first, which is quite fitting because it's literally from afar arriving first, at least to us earthlings. And while scientists have theorized about the existence of interstellar visitors for decades, OmuA Mua is undeniably from another star system. How do we know? Cuz it was moving way too fast to be local. You know, like when you live on a street with young kids and some maniac comes driving too fast and blows a stop sign.

[00:02:22]Plus, it looked weird. Most of the local comets and asteroids in our solar system move about 20 km a second. That's 12 m a second. That Yeah, that's incredibly fast. But AmuA Mua is moving so much faster. When it left the solar system, it moved at 87 km/s, 54 m/s. That Don't worry, it won't actually hit Earth ever.

[00:02:50]Yeah. No. Scientists ran the numbers and realized that Umuam is not moving into our neighborhood. It came from deep space, cut through our solar system, and it's returning to deep space, which is fine by me because it drives like a maniac. Scientists have named it 1 I 2017 U1, giving the object a whole new classification. The number one means it's a first, and the I stands for interstellar. And though we suspect that there's always one of these objects somewhere in the solar system, we don't find them very often. The potential planet buster 3II Atlas was only discovered in 2025. Meaning, that's right, it's just the third interstellar object we've ever discovered in the solar system. But what's weird about AmuA Mua, besides the fact that it originated from deep space, is that it's shaped like a cigar. People keep saying cigar, but it could also look like a cucumber, a hot dog, a Tootsie Roll, or a Belly Buster turkey and bacon submarine sandwich. I clearly need to eat lunch.

[00:03:58]Now, whatever your flavor, we just don't have these long cylindrical shaped objects flying around our planetary neighborhood. The asteroids and comets in our solar system usually potato-shaped. But a mumua is 10 times longer than it is wide, and it spins around on multiple axes, which has led to all kinds of speculation and excitement. Some scientists theorize that it may have been made by aliens.

[00:04:28]Maybe it was a probe or an alien-made ship, like an alien scout on a mission to seek out other life forms. Part of that speculation was driven by Omuam Mua's inexplicable acceleration. Yeah, it was moving faster than it should have been. Those same scientists initially suggested it may have been due to an alien light sail or solar sail, a type of spaceship drive that relies on the force of star radiation. Spaceships with solar sails aren't science fiction, though they're rare. Humans have successfully launched solar sailpowered spacecraft, too. Still, most scientists don't agree with the idea that our first verified interstellar visitor is, well, an alien probe. They studied the interstellar Voyager and concluded that AmuA Mua is more likely just a comet. A comet that doesn't play by our solar systems usual rules in that it's never shown one of those famous comet tales, but it's a comet all the same. This means that its extra acceleration is likely due to some kind of hydrogen outgassing.

[00:05:36]Since it was discovered near Jupiter's orbit, AmuA Mua has already shot by Saturn and Neptune and is now headed for the constellation Pegasus. It's been traveling through space for hundreds of millions of years, and it'll be hurtling through the expanse for another 100 million years or more. But that's nothing compared to how long Threeey Atlas may have been around. There's a good chance that as weird and mysterious as OmuA Mua was, three Atlas could be even more intriguing.

[00:06:14]First off, Threeey Atlas is from a very different part of space than Mua Mua. It looks like Threeey Atlas originated in the Milky Way's thick disc of stars, which means there's a high chance that Threeey Atlas is older than our solar system and quite possibly billions of years older, born in a region of primeval stars formed in an ultraviolent era of the galaxy's past.

[00:06:45]While every object in our solar system is a maximum age of 4 and a half billion years, Atlas could easily be 7 billion years old or more. This may be the oldest object we've ever observed in our solar system. It also means that this space rock has a completely different makeup than any other object we've ever witnessed. For example, scientists think there are high levels of nickel and iron in the gases surrounding the comet, which researchers say is extremely puzzling. I mean, all I know is it's metal, which won't be good news when it plows into Earth at 61 km a second. But hold on, we'll get to the impact in a minute. Three Atlas also has water and carbon dioxide ice blasting out of it.

[00:07:37]So unlike AmuA Mua, it has that typical coma, the envelope of gas and dust and the tail associated with most comets.

[00:07:46]The Hubble Space Telescope picked up a shot of Atlas in July of 2025, showing off that characteristic halo of dust surrounding the comet's icy nucleus. The closer it gets to our sun, the more distinct and explosive the coma and tail will get. and it's going to get close to the sun. The good news is it's not going to hit the Earth. At its closest point in December of 2025, 3I Atlas will still be 1.8 astronomical units from our pale blue dot. That's still 270 million km, 170 million miles off base.

[00:08:28]But on an astronomical scale, it's not that far off. Atlas is still going to pass within Mars's orbit and miss it by just 28 million km, 18 million miles.

[00:08:41]That's less than a quarter of the distance from Earth to Mars.

[00:08:46]Now, because this comet is still pretty far, scientists are still working to nail down the exact size of it. NASA determined that it's a minimum of 440 m in diameter, 1444 ft, and a maximum of 5.6 km in diameter, 3 1/2 m. Of course, here on What If, we like to make things big. So, for dramatic purposes, let's theorize to the max. Three atlas being 5.6 km wide when it hits us. And for our purposes, we're also going to ignore the widely ignored but titillating hypothesis that three Atlas is, yeah, an alien probe. If you follow interstellar objects, I mean, not follow interstellar objects, but you know, read about interstellar objects, well, you may have come across articles from the same group that proposed that Auamua was an alien object. Of course, they're also theorizing that ThreeI Atlas is an alien spacecraft or a technological artifact.

[00:09:52]I mean, we at What If think about aliens a lot, too. But this isn't a mothership module. Three Atlas is just a really big ancient comet swinging through our solar system at an incredible speed. And now to the part of the story you've been waiting on, the impact.

[00:10:12]Let's say Threeey Atlas's angle of approach was slightly different as it entered our solar system. And what if we discovered it too late and it arrived on our celestial doorstep before we could figure out how to nuke something in orbit or enlist Bruce Willis to blow it up? Total mayhem, right? So, what if Atlas struck her instead of passing by harmlessly?

[00:10:42]Well, to answer this, we have to go back to the planet buster, Chickixaloo. This iconic asteroid struck Earth 66 million years ago. It devastated the planet and completely changed the history of life on Earth. So, yeah, spoiler alert. If Three Atlas hit us, it would not be pretty. Now, three eye atlas is a massive comet, but it's only about half the size of the 10 km wide jigsaloop.

[00:11:14]The Jixaloop was mostly a carbonacious asteroid made up of a mix of rock, minerals, metals, and some carbon compounds. Three Atlas is mostly made of carbon dioxide, ices, and metal. So, let's say they have similar densities, but there's a concerning difference.

[00:11:35]Three Atlas is traveling way faster.

[00:11:39]Chickixaloo was moving at about 20 km/s when it hit us. Like I said earlier, 3i Atlas is moving at 61 km/s at its slowest and it would speed up as it approached the sun. That kind of velocity would be a huge problem for Earth. Because the faster an asteroid moves, the deadlier the impact. So even though threeey Atlas is smaller and lighter than Chickixaloo, because of its speed, it had hit Earth with 4 and 1/2 times the energy of Chickixaloo and it would do way more damage. Three simple words. Say them with me now. Extinction level event.

[00:12:24]When Chickixaloo hit Earth 66 million years ago, it carved a crater 100 km wide. That's 62 mi wide and 30 km deep.

[00:12:35]Blast radius incinerated everything within 1,500 km, causing extremely high tsunamis across the planet and ended 70% of the flora and fauna on Earth. Three Atlas would hit harder. Yeah, it would punch right through the atmosphere, then slam into Earth's crust in just over one second.

[00:13:03]A superheated core of plasma would cremate everything near the point of impact. A threeey atlas strike would produce a shock wave thousands of kilometers across whatever ocean or continent it struck. If it struck near a land mass like Chickixaloop did, it would create super hurricane level winds. Talking speeds of 1,000 kilometers per hour.

[00:13:32]These are hurricanes that would destroy forests and cities. And the blast would launch trillions of tons of molten material into the atmosphere. Would burn every tree on the continent and set every forest on the planet on fire. Then cue the tsunamis. High waves would flood the continents, moving 100 km inland.

[00:13:57]Rubble would fall from the sky and land would slide into the sea. Everything on the side of the planet that was struck would be toast.

[00:14:06]After that, the impact would cause worldwide earthquakes that register beyond the RTER scale, volcanic eruptions, and even more tsunamis. And then after the fires burned out, things would get real quiet, but not in a good way. The immediate effects of the 31 Atlas impact would be devastating, but the real planet killer effects are the long-term consequences.

[00:14:33]When an asteroid or a comet of that size blasts that much magma, water vapor, silt, and dirt into the atmosphere, it blocks the sunlight. For years, maybe even decades. The sky would go dark. It would get cold. Nuclear winter cold.

[00:14:52]Photosynthesis would stop. Plants would die. And everything that fed on plants would be gone, too. All the debris in the atmosphere would rain down on the Earth as extreme acid rain. Any terrestrial or freshwater vegetation that wasn't already burnt, frozen, or dying from lack of sunlight would fry under this rain. That would add to the collapse of the food chain. So unless you had a real deep bunker loaded with cases of canned beans, you and every animal that survived the initial disaster starve to death. The planet would also face the destruction of the ozone layer and even toxic metal poisoning from all the material raining back down on it. Now once that all settled, after a few years, things might actually start to get hot. That's because since Atlas is made of carbon dioxide ice, all that ice would vaporize when the comet hit the ground. But Earth wouldn't heat up right away. Only much later, when the skies finally clear, would the leftover carbon dioxide start trapping heat and push the climate back in the other direction. So, first a deep freeze, then a long scorching recovery.

[00:16:14]Not that you'd be able to witness any of it cuz you wouldn't be alive. In short, if threeey atlas struck Earth, it would be a global mass extinction. Enormous loss of life, species, entire countries, and continents. I mean, would probably be a good time to be on the International Space Station, though getting back home might be a problem after all the Armageddon.

[00:16:41]Now, the good news is, like I said, three eye atlas isn't actually going to come anywhere near us. But it's a little sad because studying this older than the solar system comet up close would be huge. Telescopes on Earth don't have a great angle on it against the sun to be able to study it from a distance. So, you shouldn't look at this comet as a harbinger of doom, but rather an opportunity to look back with time and space before the solar system, our sun, and earth were even born. Now, if you ask me, I'd rather see what the future of Earth is going to be like, say, 5 billion years from now. But that's a story for another. What if?