When Comet 3I/ATLAS streaked into our solar system in 2025, it became only the third confirmed interstellar visitor ever observed. Discovered in 2017, ‘Oumuamua was the first known interstellar object; the second was 2I/Borisov, which was discovered in 2019. Unlike the countless comets born in the Oort Cloud, 3I’s hyperbolic orbit revealed it was just passing through—an icy messenger from another star system. First spotted by the ATLAS survey in Chile, the comet quickly drew attention for its unusual behavior: it brightened far more rapidly than typical comets, driven by volatile gases like carbon dioxide and cyanide that vaporized as it neared the Sun. Its striking bluish glow, dominated by gas emissions rather than dust, set it apart from the more familiar yellow-white comets of our own system.
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For astronomers, 3I/ATLAS is a time capsule billions of years in the making. Observations from Hubble, Webb, and other telescopes suggested a nucleus less than a kilometer wide, cloaked in a vast coma rich in exotic ices and metals. These findings hint that the comet may have formed in the earliest days of its home system, long before our Sun was born. 3I just swung past perihelion two days ago when it came as close as 130 million miles of our star and will make its closest approach to Earth on December 19, 2025, at a safe distance of 270 million kilometers, before fading from view and returning to interstellar space. Comet 3I offered a fleeting but profound reminder: our solar system is not an island. Every so often, the galaxy sends us a visitor carrying whispers of distant worlds, and 3I/ATLAS was one of those rare cosmic emissaries.
Oh, and BTW, it's not an alien spacecraft.
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