Unexpected Visitor: 3I/Atlas and the Astrology of Cosmic Exile
On interstellar omens, asteroid consciousness and what arrives unbidden from beyond our tree of life
The Stranger at the Threshold
In the summer of 2025, astronomers discovered something that did not belong to our family. Moving at over 130,000 miles per hour—the fastest velocity ever recorded for a solar system visitor—an object designated 3I/Atlas entered our cosmic neighborhood from the direction of Sagittarius, near the Galactic Center. Unlike the planets that circle our Sun in their ancient, predictable dances, this traveler followed no closed orbit. It came from interstellar space, would pass through the inner solar system once and would never return.
The object’s hyperbolic trajectory confirmed its origin beyond our solar system, making it only the third confirmed interstellar visitor to pass through our celestial neighborhood. But more than its rarity, what makes 3I/Atlas spiritually significant is its nature as an outsider—something that exists entirely outside the gravitational, temporal and evolutionary story of our Sun’s family.
In the symbolic language of astrology, we must ask: what does it mean when something arrives that was never part of our tree of life?
The Philosophy of Asteroids in the Chart
Before we can understand the spiritual weight of an interstellar visitor, we must first understand how smaller bodies—asteroids—function in astrological interpretation.
Traditional astrology concerns itself primarily with the visible planets and luminaries: those bodies whose light has guided human consciousness since we first looked up. The Sun, Moon, Mercury through Saturn—these are the archetypal forces, the major characters in the cosmic drama. But in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter orbit thousands of smaller bodies, and over the past century, astrologers have discovered that these too carry meaning.
The asteroids do not replace or diminish the planets. Rather, they add nuance, specificity and texture. Where Mars might represent raw assertion, the asteroid Pallas Athene describes strategic wisdom. Where Venus governs love, asteroid Juno speaks to the specific complexities of partnership and betrayal. Asteroid Lilith (1181) orbits between Mars and Jupiter with a cycle of 4 years and 4 months, adding layers of meaning related to independence, equality and the wounds of being cast out.
Think of the planets as primary colors and asteroids as the subtle shades between—burnt sienna, cerulean, sage. The presence of asteroid Vesta in your natal chart does not mean you must become a priestess, but it may describe where your devotion runs deepest, where you tend the sacred flame. Asteroids bring the grand archetypal forces into the intimate, personal, specific realm of lived experience.
Asteroid Lilith (1181), the only physical body among the various Liliths used in astrology, represents themes of equality, unconventionality and confrontation. It is small—barely five miles in diameter—and yet its placement in a chart can illuminate where someone fights for freedom, where they refuse to submit to unjust authority, where the loss of innocence charges their inner motivation.
This is the philosophical principle: small bodies can carry disproportionate symbolic weight. Size does not determine spiritual significance. An asteroid may be a speck of rock compared to Jupiter’s vastness, but in the chart, it can describe with precision what Jupiter addresses only broadly.
The Unexpected: Lilith and 3I/Atlas
Asteroid Lilith represents the archetype of the one who was cast out, who refused submission, who exists at the margins by choice or necessity—separation, rejection and exile. She is the first wife of Adam who would not lie beneath him, who fled to the wilderness rather than accept inequality. In the chart, Lilith shows where we encounter the unexpected consequences of refusing to conform—where we are punished for our autonomy and where we discover our wildest power in that very punishment.
The connection to 3I/Atlas is not literal but thematic. Both asteroid Lilith and the interstellar visitor embody the energy of the unexpected outsider. Lilith was not supposed to leave Eden. 3I/Atlas was not supposed to be here at all. Both arrive from elsewhere, carrying information that disrupts the established order.
Asteroid Lilith speaks to our capacity “to go beyond societal norms, to be wild and unbound,” and our ability “to accept ourselves for who we are.” In the same way, 3I/Atlas—coming from another star system entirely—represents something that cannot be domesticated into our understanding, something that refuses to orbit our Sun, something that passes through and leaves forever changed.
*Hugo van der Goes, The Fall of Adam, c. 1480, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria.
The unexpected is Lilith’s domain. The asteroid that should not be named for the woman who should not have left. The comet that should not be here, that arrived from a direction astronomers did not predict, moving faster than anticipated, exhibiting behaviors slightly off from what our models suggested.
Unexpectedness is not chaos. It is the eruption of a different order—one we did not create, cannot control and must learn from.
Beyond the Tree of Life: What It Means to Be Interstellar
Our solar system is a family. Every planet, every asteroid, every comet with a closed orbit—they were all born from the same disk of gas and dust some 4.6 billion years ago. They share the same parent star. They are siblings in the most literal sense, children of the same creation event.
3I/Atlas, however, may be between 7.6 and 14 billion years old—potentially older than our entire solar system. It was born around a different star, in a different part of the galaxy, in a planetary system that formed according to different conditions. It carries within it the chemistry of that alien origin.
On the level of metaphor, 3I/Atlas comes from outside our tree of life.
In Kabbalistic-inspired models, the Tree of Life is the diagram of emanation—how the infinite becomes finite, how the One becomes the many. Our solar system is such a tree: all things in it branch from the same root, the same solar nebula. The planets occupy different sephiroth, different levels of manifestation, but they share the same trunk. Much of this can also be applied to other cultural interpretations of an axis mundi even if not completely identical. But for the sake of this article, just look up at the night sky with me :).
An interstellar object does not grow from our tree. It comes from a different forest entirely.
Astrologically, this means 3I/Atlas operates on a fundamentally different level than any planet or asteroid native to our system. The planets describe our internal psychological and spiritual architecture—they are the structures of our consciousness, evolved in relationship to our star. But something from interstellar space? It represents forces that exist beyond the boundaries of the self as we understand it.
It is Other with a capital O. It is the reminder that our family is not the only family. Our tree is not the only tree. Our story is not the only story being told.
*Red Spider Nebula as snapped by the James Webb Space Telescope. (Image credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, J. H. Kastner (Rochester Institute of Technology))
In spiritual terms, this is both humbling and dangerous. Humbling because it reminds us of our cosmic provincialism—we are not the center, we are not the totality, there are wisdoms and horrors beyond our comprehension. Dangerous because encountering the truly Other can shatter the frameworks we use to make meaning.
But sometimes those frameworks need to shatter.
The Gravity of the Moment: 3I/Atlas as Omen
3I/Atlas passed through our cosmic backyard in October 2025, bounded by the orbits of Mars and Earth, reaching its closest point to the Sun on October 30. For a brief window, this ancient wanderer from another star system moved through the territory we inhabit.
In traditional astrology, the appearance of comets was always read as an omen—usually of upheaval, change or the death of kings. Modern astrology, in an attempt to be less fatalistic, often downplays this interpretation. But perhaps we should not be so quick to dismiss the old wisdom.
An omen is not a prediction. An omen is a sign—something that makes visible an invisible pattern, something that crystallizes a moment in time so that we can look at it and say, “Ah. This is where we are. This is the nature of now.”
The appearance of 3I/Atlas in our skies—particularly during October 2025, a time of intensifying global tensions, ecological crisis and the unraveling of old certainties—carries the weight of an omen. Not because the comet itself will cause anything, but because its appearance reflects something about the spiritual and collective moment we inhabit.
We live in a time when the boundaries are dissolving. The boundary between nations, between truth and fiction, between human and machine, between the possible and the impossible. We live in a time when the unexpected arrives constantly. When systems that seemed eternal reveal themselves to be temporary. When the Other—whether immigrant or alien intelligence or previously suppressed truth—can no longer be kept at the margins.
3I/Atlas is that energy made visible. The outsider. The stranger. The thing that does not belong to our family but passes through anyway, whether we are ready or not.
Its gravity—though physically negligible—carries an energetic weight. The escape velocity from 3I/Atlas is between 1.3 and 12 meters per second, roughly equivalent to running speed—meaning you could literally run fast enough to escape its gravitational pull. And yet its symbolic gravity is immense. It pulls on our imagination. It pulls on our fears and our hopes about what exists beyond the known. It pulls on the question that humans have asked since we first became conscious: are we alone?
The omen is not about aliens. The omen is about exile, about unexpectedness, about what happens when something from outside the family arrives and reminds us that our story is not the only story, our tree is not the only tree.
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Dispelling the Alien Theories: What 3I/Atlas Actually Is
Before we can fully understand the spiritual significance of 3I/Atlas, we must address the claims that have surrounded it—specifically, the suggestion by Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb that the object might be artificial in origin, possibly an alien spacecraft or probe.
While Loeb acknowledged in his blog that “the most likely outcome will be that 3I/ATLAS is a completely natural interstellar object, probably a comet,” he defended exploring the artificial hypothesis as “an interesting exercise.” However, the scientific evidence overwhelmingly supports a natural origin.
Scientific Evidence for Natural Origin:
NASA scientist Tom Statler, the agency’s lead for solar system small bodies, stated: “It looks like a comet. It does comet things. It very, very strongly resembles, in just about every way, the comets that we know.”
Observations by NASA’s Swift Observatory detected hydroxyl (OH) gas—a chemical fingerprint of water—confirming cometary activity consistent with natural icy bodies.
The James Webb Space Telescope confirmed that 3I/Atlas is outgassing carbon dioxide, water, and carbon monoxide—substances commonly found in natural comets. Additionally, the Very Large Telescope detected cyanide gas (CN) and atomic nickel vapor, both of which are typical cometary emissions.
Darryl Seligman, a professor of physics and astronomy at Michigan State University, explained that there is “clear-cut evidence of cometary activity” and that 3I/Atlas “was and still is behaving entirely in line with solar system comets at large distances.” Regarding the unusual nickel vapor detection, Seligman noted this “has been seen in solar system comets and also in the last interstellar comet 2I/Borisov,” and is consistent with natural processes when nickel in dust grains vaporizes.
Astronomer Samantha Lawler stated that “while it is important to remain open-minded about any ‘testable prediction’, the new paper (by Loeb) pushes this sentiment to the limit,” and that “the evidence presented (by Loeb) is absolutely not extraordinary” despite extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary evidence.
Astronomer Jason Wright noted that Loeb’s analysis dismisses basic observations of the comet’s extended source and cometary nature “based on an assumption” about image tracking that has been solved for over a century, calling it “very, very bad science.”
The consensus is clear: Richard Moissl, Head of Planetary Defence at the European Space Agency, told Newsweek: “There have been no signs pointing to non-natural origins of 3I/ATLAS in the available observations.”
I get it, we cannot trust the “system.” I write enough Astrological Forecasts warning about fascism that I would hope you would think I do not simply trust everything on the news. But these scientists are showing consistency of critical thinking.
The Moment in Time: How to Work with This Omen
Unlike the asteroids in our natal charts—which orbit the Sun on predictable cycles and will occupy the same positions again and again across lifetimes—3I/Atlas passes through only once. It is not a personal placement. It is a collective transit, a moment-in-time phenomenon that touches everyone simultaneously.
3I/Atlas reached perihelion—its closest approach to the Sun—on October 30, 2025. This moment marks the peak intensity of its symbolic influence. From this point forward, it speeds away from our system, never to return.
How, then, do we work with something that arrives and departs in a single gesture?
We work with it the way we work with any omen: not by trying to control it, but by reading it, honoring it and allowing it to change our perspective.
Practical engagement with the omen of 3I/Atlas:
Acknowledge what comes from outside your system. In your own life, what unexpected visitors have arrived? What new information, what stranger at the threshold, what exile from another tree of life has knocked on your door? The omen asks: are you brave enough to let it in? Or will you insist that only what belongs to your family deserves recognition?
Question your assumptions about boundaries. 3I/Atlas reminds us that the boundaries we draw—between self and other, between our tribe and their tribe, between comprehensible and incomprehensible—are provisional. They are not absolute. The external universe does not respect them. What would change if you lived as though the boundary between inside and outside were more permeable than you thought?
Honor unexpectedness. Asteroid Lilith teaches us to honor the unexpected, the exiled, the rejected. 3I/Atlas is the unexpected made manifest in the heavens. When something arrives in your life that you did not plan for, that disrupts your orbit, that moves too fast to domesticate—can you see it as a gift rather than an intrusion? Can you learn from what refuses to stay?
Remember you are not the center. The planets orbit the Sun. The asteroids orbit the Sun. Even the most distant objects in the Oort cloud are held by solar gravity. But 3I/Atlas owes nothing to our star. It existed long before our solar system formed and will exist long after. This is a profound spiritual lesson: you are not the center of every story. There are narratives unfolding that have nothing to do with you and yet they touch you anyway. How do you live with that knowledge?
Conclusion: The Wisdom of Wanderers
In many spiritual traditions, the wanderer—the one without a home, the exile, the stranger—is understood to carry special wisdom. They have seen what those who stay in one place cannot see. They know what those who belong to the family can never know.
3I/Atlas is a wanderer. It has been traveling through interstellar space for BILLIONS of years, enough time to have encountered 25 known stars in the past 10 million years alone. It has seen things we cannot imagine. It carries within its icy nucleus the chemical signature of creation events in parts of the galaxy we will never visit.
And for one brief moment—the blink of an eye in cosmic time—it passed through our neighborhood.
The spiritual significance of 3I/Atlas is not that it will change our fate. It is that it reveals our moment. It shows us that we live in a time when the boundaries are porous, when the unexpected arrives daily, when what was previously outside the system must now be integrated—or at least acknowledged.
Like asteroid Lilith, who refused to return to the garden and instead became a symbol of wild autonomy, 3I/Atlas refuses to join our family. It will not orbit our Sun. It will not become one of us.
And perhaps that is the deepest teaching: not everything needs to become part of your system. Some things pass through, leave their mark and continue on their own trajectory.
The question is not whether we can capture them, control them or make them belong.
The question is whether we are wise enough to recognize the gift in their passing.
For those who wish to track the continuing journey of 3I/Atlas, the comet will reappear in the pre-dawn sky in late November 2025, visible through telescopes as it moves through the constellations Virgo and Leo, growing dimmer as it speeds toward the outer solar system and beyond—back to the vast darkness between stars, where all wanderers eventually return.
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