ESA/TGO/CaSSIS The comet 3I/ATLAS (fuzzy white dot) captured in space. The white streaks are stars.

Abraham “Avi” Loeb, the Harvard astronomy professor and bestselling author, has dared to explore what he calls “the most romantic question in science”: Are we alone?

“This question is a question that every lonely person asks,” Loeb said in an interview at his Lexington home. Too often, he said, humans become preoccupied with what happens close to us, in our home on the cosmic block. But Loeb looks beyond.

Loeb has caught the public’s – and NASA’s – attention for his comments about a newly discovered interstellar object, known as 3I/ATLAS, that is hurtling toward the sun and through our solar system. NASA says it’s a comet. Loeb suggests it could be alien technology.

“What I’m doing as a

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