NASA has recently made an exciting discovery—a comet from another star system has entered our solar neighborhood. This remarkable celestial visitor, identified as 3I/Atlas, was detected with the Atlas telescope in Chile earlier this week.
This marks the third interstellar object confirmed to pass through our solar system, and fortunately, it poses no risk to Earth. Paul Chodas, who heads NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies, highlighted the lengthy journey this comet has undertaken, suggesting it has been traveling through space for potentially millions, or even billions, of years.
Currently, the comet is about 416 million miles from the sun, located near Jupiter, and is racing toward us at a speed of 37 miles per second. NASA announced that the comet will make its closest approach to the sun in late October, passing safely between Mars and Earth at a distance of about 150 million miles.
Astronomers globally are monitoring this icy snowball to assess its size and shape. There have been over 100 observations of 3I/Atlas since its initial discovery on July 1, revealing signs of a tail and a cloud of gas and dust surrounding its nucleus.
The comet should remain visible through telescopes until September before it gets too close to the sun, with a chance to reappear in December as it moves to the other side of the sun. Initial observations suggest that this comet might be larger than the previous interstellar visitors and is coming in faster from a unique direction, possibly from closer to the center of our galaxy.
The first interstellar visitor detected was named Oumuamua, which means “scout” in Hawaiian. Discovered in 2017, it was initially classified as an asteroid but later showed characteristics of a comet. The second such object, named 21/Borisov, was found in 2019 by an amateur astronomer in Crimea and is also believed to be a comet.
Chodas expressed excitement about these discoveries, noting we’ve anticipated seeing interstellar objects for decades, and finally, we are witnessing them. While they are natural phenomena, they still spark interest and fascination in the scientific community.
