Overview

• NASA’s Tom Statler says the evidence overwhelmingly indicates a cometary body and notes the object poses no threat, staying about 170 million miles from Earth at closest approach.
• Space- and ground-based spectra, including JWST and SPHEREx data, show a CO2‑dominated coma with an extreme carbon‑dioxide‑to‑water ratio of roughly 8:1.
• Prediscovery analyses using TESS imagery indicate the object was already active far from the Sun, with activity detected months before its July 1 discovery.
• Gaia‑based back‑tracing identifies numerous stellar encounters but no parent system, supporting an old origin likely tied to the thin/thick‑disk transition region of the Milky Way.
• A close pass by Mars on October 3 is expected to yield sharper views from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, with additional observations continuing around perihelion in late October.