Overview
- NASA and ESA report the object will make its closest pass on December 19 at roughly 270 million kilometers, traveling near 60 km per second, with no threat to Earth.
- New Hubble imaging from December 3 and agency analyses reveal two distinct tails—a plasma tail and a fainter dust tail—signaling elevated outgassing.
- Astronomers have measured a repeating brightness pulse every 16.16 hours tied to jets from the comet’s rotation, with agencies describing a natural process despite outside speculation.
- A recent arXiv preprint by Josep M. Trigo-Rodríguez, Maria Gritsevich and Jürgen Blum proposes a metal-rich, trans‑Neptunian–like body with possible cryovolcanism and Fischer–Tropsch–type chemistry, a hypothesis that remains unreviewed.
- The object is only the third confirmed interstellar visitor observed, and a coordinated observing campaign is underway with broader results expected to be shared in February 2026.