New interstellar comet to make a distant flyby, says NASA
The comet should remain viewable through telescopes until September as it approaches the Sun, then emerge again in December on its outbound leg.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of USA has identified an interstellar comet that has drifted into our solar neighbourhood.
Spotted earlier this week by the ATLAS telescope in Chile, the fast-moving object has been confirmed as a comet originating from beyond our star system. It is the third known interstellar visitor and poses no danger to Earth.
"These objects take millions of years to travel between stellar neighbourhoods, so this one has likely been traversing space for hundreds of millions or even billions of years," said Paul Chodas, director of NASA's Center for Near Earth Object Studies, on Thursday.
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"We don't know its origin, so we can't yet pinpoint which star it came from."
"We've anticipated interstellar objects for decades, and now we're finally observing them," Chodas said. "It's a natural visitor—not artificial—yet incredibly exciting."
Currently about 416 million miles (670 million kilometres) from the Sun — near Jupiter's orbit — the comet is hurtling inward at roughly 37 miles (59 kilometres) per second.
It will reach its perihelion, the point in the orbit of a comet when it is closest to the sun, in late October. It will be passing between the orbits of Mars and Earth while staying some 150 million miles (240 million kilometres) from our planet — well beyond any risk.
Designated 3I/ATLAS, astronomers worldwide are tracking the icy body to estimate its dimensions and form. Since its discovery on 1 July, over 100 observations have reported a visible tail and a surrounding coma of gas and dust.
The comet should remain viewable through telescopes until September as it approaches the Sun, then emerge again in December on its outbound leg.
Preliminary brightness measurements suggest 3I/ATLAS may exceed the size of the first two known interstellar objects, potentially spanning several miles (tens of kilometres).
Its faster speed and differing trajectory imply it may have originated closer to the Milky Way's core.
Earth's first interstellar visitor, ʻOumuamua, was detected in 2017 and later reclassified as a comet, while 2I/Borisov was discovered in 2019 by a Crimean amateur astronomer.
