Interstellar object comet 3I/ATLAS | Latest news and articles
3I/ATLAS is the third interstellar object ever discovered in our solar system. Telescope observations suggest it is a comet about 11 kilometers wide zooming at more than 130,000 mph (210,000 km/h). Astronomers I discovered it in early July as it emerged beyond Jupiter’s orbit. An analysis of the comet’s composition and its unusually flat, straight trajectory revealed that it did not originate in our cosmic neighborhood and was likely ejected from a distant star system long before the formation of our sun.
The exotic comet has many special properties, from its chemical composition to its large size. This has fueled speculation that the comet is an alien spacecraft intentionally guided here. It certainly isn’t, but that doesn’t mean astronomers aren’t excited to study it to better understand conditions around other stars, the beginnings of the Milky Way, and the frontier of interstellar space. Live Science will continue to follow the latest research as the comet reappears on the far side of the sun in mid-November, once again becoming visible to ground-based telescopes.
