Overview

• 3I/ATLAS is the third known interstellar object after ʻOumuamua and Borisov, marking a rare discovery beyond our solar neighborhood.
• It was first detected on July 1 by the ATLAS survey telescope in Chile at 670 million kilometres from the Sun and later confirmed to follow a hyperbolic trajectory.
• Data presented at the UK Royal Astronomical Society indicate a two-thirds probability that the comet predates the solar system, with an inferred age over seven billion years.
• Measurements of its orbit and initial speed around 60 kilometres per hour point to an origin in an unexplored region of the Milky Way’s thick disk.
• The 12-mile-wide object will reach perihelion inside Mars’s orbit on Oct. 30 and will pass safely by Earth on Dec. 17, with its coma and tail expected to be visible through amateur telescopes in late 2025.