Overview

• First observed on July 1 by NASA’s ATLAS survey and named by the Minor Planet Center, 3I/ATLAS is the third confirmed interstellar object to enter our solar system.
• Ground- and space-based observatories including Gemini North, VLT, Hubble and James Webb are conducting coordinated imaging and spectroscopy to study its composition and activity.
• High-resolution images confirm a roughly 12-mile (20-kilometer) nucleus enveloped by a dense gas-and-dust coma indicative of ongoing outgassing.
• Orbital calculations indicate a hyperbolic trajectory with perihelion at about 210 million km on October 30 and a December Earth pass no closer than 270 million km, posing no impact risk.
• A provisional, non–peer-reviewed paper led by Harvard’s Avi Loeb proposes an artificial origin, but researchers await additional data to evaluate the hypothesis.