Overview
- New post‑perihelion images captured from Oct. 31 to early November, including by Qicheng Zhang at Lowell Observatory, show the comet’s unexpectedly blue appearance and renewed brightness.
- NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory detected hydroxyl emission, a proxy for water, indicating active outgassing at unusually large distances from the Sun.
- NASA and ESA report a hyperbolic, high‑speed trajectory of over roughly 210,000 km/h with no impact risk, with the closest Earth approach expected around Dec. 19 at about 270 million kilometers.
- Hubble, Swift and ESA’s JUICE are conducting coordinated observations through November to study composition and activity, while estimates of nucleus size remain wide, from hundreds of meters to several kilometers.
- Claims that the object could be artificial remain disputed by most researchers, as agencies describe behavior consistent with a natural comet.