The alert didn’t come as a press release. It came as a silent, crimson lock across every orbital trajectory screen on the planet. 3I/ATLAS, the interstellar mystery that had haunted astronomers for years, had just stopped being a visitor.

In a maneuver of impossible, silent precision, it had shed its hyperbolic arc—the path that should have flung it forever back into the deep dark—and settled into a new, neater, more terrifying equation: a resonant Earth-centric orbit. It wasn’t fleeing. It wasn’t pᴀssing by.

It was docking. Calculations flashed with brutal clarity: within 18 months, a gravitational keyhole would snap shut, placing it in a permanent, stable dance with our world, a new and artificial moon. The shift was accompanied by a single, directed pulse of radio noise aimed back at its origin point. Not a distress call. A status update. Arrival confirmed. Position acquired. The question was no longer about its origin, but its intent.

It had studied the solar system, ᴀssessed its options, and with calm, cosmic deliberation, it had chosen us. The sky, it seemed, had just acquired a permanent fixture. And we were now living under its patient, silent observation.