Mystery Interstellar Object Could Be Oldest Known Comet

A enigma interstellar entity spotted past week by astronomers could beryllium nan oldest comet ever seen, according to scientists.

Named 3I/Atlas, it whitethorn beryllium 3 cardinal years older than our ain star system, suggests nan squad from Oxford university.

The preliminary findings were presented connected Friday astatine nan nationalist gathering of nan UK's Royal Astronomical Society successful Durham.

"We're each very excited by 3I/Atlas," University of Oxford astronomer Matthew Hopkins told BBC News. He had conscionable vanished his PhD studies erstwhile nan entity was discovered.

He says it could beryllium much than 7 cardinal years old, and it whitethorn beryllium nan astir singular interstellar visitant yet.

3I/Atlas was first spotted connected 1 July 2025 by nan ATLAS study scope successful Chile, erstwhile it was astir 670 cardinal km from nan Sun.

Since past astronomers astir nan world person been racing to place its way and observe much specifications astir it.

Mr Hopkins believes it originated successful nan Milky Way's 'thick disk'. This is simply a group of ancient stars that orbit supra and beneath nan area wherever nan Sun and astir stars are located.

The squad judge that because 3I/ATLAS astir apt formed astir an aged star, it is made up of a batch of h2o ice.

That intends that arsenic it approaches nan Sun later this year, nan power from nan Sun will power nan object's surface, starring to blazes of vapour and dust.

That could create a glowing tail.

The researchers made their findings utilizing a exemplary developed by Mr Hopkins.

"This is an entity from a portion of nan postulation we've ne'er seen up adjacent before," said Professor Chris Lintott, co-author of nan study.

"We deliberation there's a two-thirds chance this comet is older than nan star system, and that it's been drifting done interstellar abstraction ever since."

Later this year, 3I/ATLAS should beryllium visible from Earth utilizing amateur telescopes.

Before 3I/Atlas soared into view, conscionable 2 others had been seen. One was called 1I/'Oumuamua, recovered successful 2017 and different called 2I/Borisov, discovered successful 2019.

Astronomers globally are presently gearing up to commencement utilizing a new, very powerful scope successful Chile, called nan Vera C Rubin.

When it starts afloat surveying nan confederate nighttime entity later this year, scientists expect that it could observe betwixt 5 and 50 caller interstellar objects.