NASA discovers new interstellar visitor some 420 million miles from Earth
The space agency spotted the quick-moving object with the Atlas telescope in Chile on July 2 and confirmed it was a comet from another star system. The new interstellar comet's official name is 3I/ATLAS, reports CBS News.
The newly discovered comet is the third known interstellar object to pass through our solar system, and has been said to pose no threat to Earth. The other two interstellar objects were 2I/Borisov, reported in 2019, and Oumuamua in 2017.
'These things take millions of years to go from one stellar neighbourhood to another, so this thing has likely been traveling through space for hundreds of millions of years, even billions of years," Paul Chodas, director of NASA's Center for Near Earth Object Studies, said yesterday. "We don't know, and so we can't predict which star it came from."
The 3I/ATLAS is said to be over 416 million miles (669 million km) from the sun, out near Jupiter, and heading this way at a blistering 37 miles (59.5 km) per second.
NASA said the comet will make its closest approach to the sun in late October, scooting between the orbits of Mars and Earth — but closer to the red planet than Earth at a safe distance of 150 million miles (241 million km).
Space agencies worldwide are currently monitoring the icy snowball that's been officially designated as 3I/Atlas, trying to determine its size and shape.
Chodas said there have been more than 100 observations since its discovery, with preliminary reports of a tail and a cloud of gas and dust around the comet's nucleus.
NASA said 3I/ATLAS should remain visible to telescopes through September, but then it will pass too close to the sun to observe. It is expected to reappear on the other side of the sun by early December, allowing for renewed observations.
Based on its brightness, the comet appears to be bigger than the first two interstellar interlopers, possibly several miles across, Chodas said.
It's coming in faster, too, from a different direction, and while its home star is unknown, scientists suspect it was closer to the center of the Milky Way galaxy.
"We've been expecting to see interstellar objects for decades, frankly, and finally we're seeing them," Chodas said.
"A visitor from another solar system, even though it's natural — it's not artificial, don't get excited because some people do ... It's just very exciting."
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