Overview

• Observations report roughly a 40-fold increase in brightness since early September, far above earlier expectations.
• Images show a green coma about five arcminutes across with a tail pointing toward the Sun, an unusual configuration for comets.
• The object will pass about 29–30 million kilometers from Mars on Oct. 3, with MRO, ESA’s Trace Gas Orbiter, and Mars Express preparing close-range observations.
• New reports estimate a nucleus at least about 5 kilometers wide and a mass exceeding 33 billion tonnes, with a composition likely rich in carbon dioxide.
• Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb has proposed in a July paper that the object could be a technological artifact, a speculative idea that contrasts with mainstream comet interpretations.