Forget 3I/ATLAS; NASA Discovers Shocking Astronomical Object 'Cloud 9' — What We Know

Are you still trying to figure out the truth on 3I/ATLAS? You are not alone, space lovers and scientists both have been obsessed with cosmic enigmas in 2025 and 2026. One story that has dominated social media is the strange interstellar object known as 3I/ATLAS, a visitor from beyond our Solar System, but it looks like 3I/ATLAS is old news.

NASA has revealed an entirely different and unexpected discovery that could change our understanding of how structures form in the Universe. This new object, nicknamed Cloud 9, is not just another comet or asteroid. It appears to be the first confirmed example of a completely new category of starless celestial object. Here is what we know so far.

The Viral Sensation of 3I/ATLAS

In case you have been living under a rock, in mid-2025, astronomers detected an unusual visitor to our Solar System. Designated 3I/ATLAS or C/2025 N1 (ATLAS), it was identified by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System telescope in Chile and later confirmed to be the third interstellar object ever observed passing through our neighbourhood in space.

Scientists then immediately mobilised a fleet of observatories and space telescopes to study the object as it made its way through the inner Solar System. The Hubble Space Telescope captured images showing a faint coma and a dusty tail, confirming its cometary nature, while data from the James Webb Space Telescope revealed that its gaseous envelope is dominated by carbon dioxide rather than water ice, a rare composition for such bodies.

But part of the reason 3I/ATLAS got all that public attention was the conspiracy surrounding its origin and nature. Rumours abounded on social media and forums saying that 3I/ATLAS has artificial or alien origins, mostly due to the object's atypical features such as irregular brightness changes and anti-sunward jets.

However, despite the sci-fi alien plot, mainstream scientific consensus remains that 3I/ATLAS is a natural interstellar comet, albeit one with some unique characteristics that help astronomers better understand material from beyond our own Solar System. Observations showed that it passed within roughly 1.8 astronomical units of Earth, close enough for detailed study but far enough to pose no threat.

Read More: 'No Comet Ever Had This' - New Viral 3I/ATLAS Images Shock Social Media As it Nears Earth

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What NASA Has Just Found: Introducing Cloud 9

But that is old news because while 3I/ATLAS has dominated headlines, NASA has quietly announced the discovery of something completely different, an object the likes of which astronomers have never seen before. Using the Hubble Space Telescope, researchers have identified a starless, gas-rich cloud that appears to defy categorisation under existing types of celestial objects.

Nicknamed Cloud 9, this object was observed in February 2025 and was part of a programme to study diffuse gas structures in nearby galaxies. What makes Cloud 9 incredible is that it appears to contain giant amounts of gas and dark matter but no stars at all, a combination that astronomers expected in theory but had never conclusively observed until now.

According to the European Space Agency and NASA scientists involved in the research, Cloud 9 may represent a failed or nascent galaxy, a remnant from the early Universe that never gathered enough mass to ignite stellar formation. Such starless gas clouds have indeed been predicted by cosmological models of structure formation, especially those involving dark matter, which exerts gravitational influence but does not interact with light. Cloud 9 may be a rare relic left over from a time shortly after the Big Bang, when the first structures began to coalesce under gravity.

The lack of stars in Cloud 9 is exactly what makes it so valuable scientifically. Stars are typically the brightest components of any galaxy and the easiest to detect. Without stars, a cloud of gas and dark matter is extremely faint and nearly invisible against the backdrop of space. Its discovery, therefore, tells us that there could be a whole population of similar objects existing in the Universe, previously hidden from view because they emit virtually no light.