News of the extrasolar entity, initially dubbed A11pl3Z, broke on Tuesday (July 1), when NASA and the International Astronomical Union (IAU) both listed it as a confirmed object. It was first discovered in data collected between June 25 and June 29 by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS), which automatically scans the night sky using telescopes in Hawaii, Chile and South Africa. Multiple telescopes across the world have subsequently spotted the object in observation data that date back to June 14.
The object is traveling toward the sun extremely fast, at around 152,000 mph (245,000 km/h), and observations suggest that it is set on an extremely flat and straight trajectory, unlike anything else in the solar system. This led many experts to speculate that it originated from beyond the sun’s gravitational influence and has enough momentum to shoot straight through our cosmic neighbourhood without slowing down.
But scientists have long suspected that many more interstellar interlopers likely pass through our cosmic neighbourhood without ever being detected. Until now, only two confirmed interstellar visitors have ever been spotted: Comet 2I/Borisov, which was seen sailing through the solar system in 2019; and ‘Oumuamua, a cigar-shaped object that made headlines in 2017 when some astronomers argued it was potentially an alien probe, before experts showed it was most likely a hydrogen-spewing space rock.
Earth will be on the opposite side of the sun to 3I/ATLAS during its solar flyby. The comet will likely make its closest approach to Earth in December, on its journey back out of the solar system. As a result, “the comet poses no threat to Earth and will remain at a [minimum] distance of at least 1.6 astronomical units,” NASA officials wrote in the statement.