Astronomers recently discovered a rare interstellar object passing through our solar system, and a Harvard physicist is sounding the alarm that its strange characteristics might indicate it’s more than just a typical comet.

"Maybe the trajectory was designed," Dr. Avi Loeb, science professor at Harvard University, told Fox News Digital. "If it had an objective to sort of to be on a reconnaissance mission, to either send mini probes to those planets or monitor them… It seems quite anomalous."

The object — dubbed 3I/ATLAS — was first detected in early July by an Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, or ATLAS, telescope located in Chile. The discovery marked only the third time an interstellar object has been observed entering our solar system, according to NASA.

Although NASA has classified the object as a comet, Loeb noted that an image of the cosmic visitor indicated an unexpected glow appearing in front of the object, rather than trailing behind it — something he described as "quite surprising."

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"Usually with comets you have a tail, a cometary tail, where dust and gas are shining, reflecting sunlight, and that's the signature of a comet," Loeb told Fox News Digital. "Here, you see a glow in front of it, not behind it."

Measuring about 20 kilometers across, making it larger than Manhattan, 3I/ATLAS is also unusually bright for its distance. However, according to Loeb, its most unusual characteristic is its trajectory.

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"If you imagine objects entering the solar system from random directions, just one in 500 of them would be aligned so well with the orbits of the planets," he said.

The interstellar object, which comes from the center of the Milky Way galaxy, is also expected to pass near to Mars, Venus and Jupiter — something that is also highly improbable to happen at random, according to Loeb.

"It also comes close to each of them, with a probability of one in 20,000," he said. 

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The 3I/ATLAS object will reach its closest point to our sun — about 130 million miles away — on October 30, according to NASA.

"If it turns out to be technological, it would obviously have a big impact on the future of humanity," Loeb said. "We have to decide how to respond to that."

In January, seven years after SpaceX CEO Elon Musk launched a Tesla Roadster into orbit, astronomers from the Minor Planet Center at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Massachusetts confused it with an asteroid.

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A spokesperson for NASA did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.

A pair of Democratic and Republican representatives appeared to endorse Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's plan for Israel to take over Gaza on Sunday.

Reps Rick Crawford, R-Ark., and Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., appeared on "Fox News Sunday" with host Shannon Bream after conducting a joint visit to Israel. Netanyahu's office has faced some criticism after the nation's security cabinet voted on Friday to allow the IDF to fully take over Gaza.

Crawford argued that such a plan would be safer for the remaining hostages in Hamas custody.

"I think they have a greater risk of dying under the current conditions than they would if the IDF takes the action that they're talking about," Crawford said of the hostages. "Basically, Hamas is starving them. People talk about the starvation in Gaza. The starvation is taking place at the hands of Hamas, and it's primarily directed at the hostages that they are holding."

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Meanwhile, Gottheimer said a takeover by Israel is the "right answer," so long as the IDF involvement is truly temporary. He argued that Hamas must be crushed fully, but another governing structure must be put in place.

"The prime minister made it very clear … that there is no intent for long-term occupation or annexation, which I think is the right answer," he said. "You need to make sure you crush Hamas, you get humanitarian aid in, and then you get a new governing structure in."

ISRAEL SECURITY CABINET APPROVES PLAN TO OCCUPY GAZA CITY

Gottheimer added that he expects negotiations to lead to a "multinational Arab force" that keeps the peace in Gaza long-term.

Netanyahu and his security cabinet met through the night before announcing on Friday that Israel planned to retake control over the entire Gaza territory and eventually hand it off to friendly Arab forces opposed to Hamas.

"The Security Cabinet has approved the Prime Minister's proposal for defeating Hamas. The IDF will prepare for taking control of Gaza City while distributing humanitarian assistance to the civilian population outside the combat zones," Netanyahu announced on X.

The office said the Security Cabinet had adopted, by vote, five principles for concluding the war which include: the disarming of Hamas, the return of all hostages – living and deceased, the demilitarization of the Gaza Strip, Israeli security control in the Gaza Strip, and the establishment of an alternative civil administration that is neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority.

The prospect of a full military occupation of Gaza comes 20 years after Israel's full disengagement from the enclave when the government forcibly removed around 8,600 Jewish residents from the area. Shortly after, Hamas won the Palestinian legislative elections and staged a violent coup to overthrow the Palestinian Authority and seize control of the Gaza Strip.

Fox News' Bradford Betz contributed to this report