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Scientists are tracking an object approaching Earth that might have originated from a different star system.
Scientists may have identified what could be just the third known object from outside our solar system to travel through the solar system, according to a statement from the European Space Agency on Wednesday.
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The innocuous object is now in the vicinity of Jupiter, situated hundreds of millions of miles away and traveling toward Mars. However, scientists predict that it won't come any closer to the sun than its current trajectory suggests.
Early evaluations were inconclusive, but NASA has now identified it as a comet covered in snow.
Later on Wednesday, NASA revealedIt had also detected the object using a survey telescope. Additionally, it gathered "pre-discovery" information from other telescopes that tracked the object's trajectory as far back as last month.
Situated approximately 420 million miles from Earth, NASA reported that the anomaly had entered our solar system from the direction of the constellation Sagittarius and is expected to move toward Gemini. The object has been officially named 3I/ATLAS, in recognition of the NASA-supported ATLAS telescope in Chile that initially detected it.
These journeys from one stellar neighborhood to another take millions of years, so this object has probably been moving through space for hundreds of millions, maybe even billions, of years," said Paul Chodas, director of NASA's Center for Near Earth Object Studies, on Thursday. "We simply don't know, and therefore can't determine which star it originated from.
NASA stated that the comet will reach its nearest point to the sun in late October, passing between the orbits of Mars and Earth, but remaining closer to the red planet than to us, at a secure distance of 150 million miles.
3I/ATLAS is expected to stay observable through ground-based telescopes until September, when it will move too near the Sun to be seen," NASA stated. "The object is anticipated to emerge on the opposite side of the Sun by early December, making further observations possible.."
Astrophysicist Josep Trigo-Rodriguez from the Institute of Space Sciences near Barcelona, Spain, thinks it's an interstellar object due to its unusual trajectory and extremely high speed as it moves through the solar system. He approximates its diameter to be around 25 miles.
Scientists globally are observing the frozen snowball to assess its dimensions and form. According to Chodas, The Associated Press was informed that over 100 observations have been made since it was first spotted on July 1, including early reports describing a tail and a cloud of gas and dust surrounding the comet's core.
The first officially recognized interstellar object arrived in 2017. It was named Oumuamua, a Hawaiian term meaning "scout," paying tribute to the Hawaiian observatory that detected it. Initially categorized as an asteroid, this stretched-out object has later displayed characteristics suggesting it might be a comet.
The second object confirmed to have entered our solar system from another star system is 21/Borisov, identified in 2019 and thought to be a comet.
According to its brightness, the comet seems to be larger than the first two interstellar visitors, potentially spanning several miles (tens of kilometers) in diameter, Chodas stated. It's also approaching at a higher speed and from another direction. Although its origin star remains unidentified, researchers believe it may have originated nearer to the center of our Milky Way galaxy.
We’ve been anticipating the detection of interstellar objects for decades, and now we’re finally witnessing them," Chodas stated. "It's a traveler from another star system, although it's natural in origin — not artificial, so no need to get overly enthusiastic like some people do... Still, it’s incredibly exciting.
The Associated Press provided contributions to this report.
READ MORE:Astronomers have detected a new interstellar visitor traveling through our solar system.
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