3I/ATLAS, the third interstellar object making headlines today, is the oldest of the three. Kakharov and Loeb wrote in the paper that it has a median age of 4.6 billion years. It originated from the Milky Way’s thick disk, the region where older, lower metallicity stars reside. The researchers say that this shows that “ISOs are ejected from planetary systems …
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Press enter or click to view image in full size Avi Loeb’s research notes on 3I/ATLAS (August 24, 2025). Before my morning jog at sunrise, I sketched a model for the dust outflow around the new interstellar object, 3I/ATLAS, which appears as a fuzzy glow in the image obtained by the Hubble Space Telescope on July 21, 2025. One of …
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An object that came from outside our solar system is hurtling towards the sun at roughly 61km (38 miles) a second. First detected in July, this visitor from outer space – known as 3I/Atlas – is only the third known interstellar object to have been observed, after ‘Oumuamua in 2017 and 2I/Borisov in 2019. Excitement has been growing since the …
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In the past decade, astronomers have witnessed three interstellar objects (ISOs) passing through the Solar System. This included the enigmatic ‘Oumuamua in 2017, the interstellar comet 2I/Borisov in 2019, and 3I/ATLAS in July 2025. This latest object also appears to be a comet based on recent observations that showed it was actively releasing water vapor as it neared the Sun. …
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On the 1st of July 2025, the Asteroid Terrestrial-Impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) in Chile spotted a new comet entering our solar system. This comet was named 3I/ATLAS, as it’s only the third interstellar object humans observed passing through our solar system. The previous two interstellar bodies discovered were 1I/’Oumuamua (spotted in 2017), and 2I/BORISOV (detected in 2019). It seems …
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From ground observatories, based on its brightness, the original best estimate for the size of its nucleus was anywhere from 10-20 kilometres in diameter. New data from Hubble has significantly reduced that, putting an upper limit on the comet’s size of 5.6 kilometres wide. That’s still substantially larger than both 2I/Borisov and 1I/’Oumuamua, which were estimated at being roughly 500 …
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Astronomers at the Pan-STARRS Observatory in Hawaii made history in 2017 when they detected ‘Oumuamua, the first interstellar object (ISO) ever observed. Two years later, the interstellar comet 2I/Borisov became the second ISO ever observed. And on July 1st, 2025, the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) in Rio Hurtado detected a third interstellar object in our Solar System, the …
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Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have observed 3I/ATLAS, only the third known object from outside our Solar System to visit our neighborhood. This interstellar interloper is putting on quite a show as it approaches the Sun, revealing secrets about visitors from the depths of space. 3I/ATLAS is clearly active at 3.8 astronomical units as it approaches the Sun, showing …
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3I/ATLAS, our third discovered interstellar visitor, has been in the news a lot lately for a whole host of reasons, and rightly so given the amount of unique scientific data different groups and telescopes have been collecting off of it. A new pre-release paper from researchers at the Auburn University Department of Physics recounts yet another interesting aspect of the …
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Comet 3I/ATLAS has been observed by the Hubble Space Telescope, which delivered new insights into this third interstellar visitor. The orbital observatory has refined the estimates about the size of the cometary nucleus and confirmed that the comet is the fastest ever to come from beyond the Solar System. The comet was discovered on July 1 by the NASA-funded Asteroid …
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