2 hours ago

NASA releases new photos of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS

NASA released new images of an interstellar comet — just the third visitor from elsewhere in the galaxy ever confirmed — on Wednesday, showing the comet as a bright point of light surrounded by a blurry halo of gas and dust.

In the long-awaited photos, the object, dubbed 3I/ATLAS, mostly appears as an illuminated dot, but some images also reveal the comet’s tail as a faint, elongated smudge.

The interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, circled in the center, as seen by NASA’s Lucy spacecraft. This image was made by stacking a series of images taken on Sept. 16, as the comet was zooming toward Mars. (NASA / Goddard / SwRI / JHU-APL)

The images were taken by various NASA spacecraft in recent weeks, as the mysterious comet swung through the inner solar system. But they were not made public until now because of the government shutdown, which put work at NASA and other federal agencies on hold.

Comet 3I/ATLAS was first detected in July, sparking a flurry of interest among scientists and in amateur astronomy circles. Much of the intrigue stems from the extremely rare chance to get a relatively up-close view of an interstellar object.

Traveling 130,000 miles per hour, 3I/ATLAS was made visible via a series of colorized stacked images from Sept. 11-25, using a visible-light imager on the STEREO-A (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory) spacecraft. (NASA / Lowell Observatory / Qicheng Zhang)

Before this one, the only two objects ever confirmed to have entered our solar system from someplace beyond in the galaxy were the cigar-shaped ‘Oumuamua in 2017 and comet 2I/Borisov in 2019.

While 3I/ATLAS’s visit to our cosmic neighborhood has fueled wild theories that the comet could be extraterrestrial technology or an alien spacecraft, there has been no scientific evidence to support such claims. NASA has said that 3I/ATLAS is “consistent with what we expect from a comet.”

In the weeks ahead, scientists will have more opportunities to study 3I/ATLAS and better characterize its features, including its appearance, speed and possible place of origin.

Observations of comet 3I/ATLAS from Sept. 28 to Oct. 10 from the PUNCH satellites in low-Earth orbit, when the comet was between 231 million to 235 million miles away. (NASA / Southwest Research Institute)

The comet reached its closest point to the sun at the end of October and is now continuing its journey through the inner solar system. Because of its proximity to the sun in recent weeks, it was not visible to ground-based telescopes, but NASA expects 3I/ATLAS to emerge into view again on the other side of the sun by early December.

On Dec. 19, 3I/ATLAS will fly by Earth. It does not pose a threat to our planet, according to NASA; the comet will remain at a safe distance of roughly 170 million miles during the rendezvous.

The images NASA released Wednesday join a growing collection of 3I/ATLAS photos taken by various spacecraft throughout the solar system. The European Space Agency in early October released images of the comet from its ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, which is in orbit around Mars.

An image of a comet (The European Space Agency)

The probe, jointly operated by ESA and Russia’s Federal Space Agency, spotted 3I/ATLAS as it buzzed by the red planet. At the time, the comet was around 18.6 million miles from the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, according to ESA.

The photos, like the new ones from NASA, showed a bright white dot moving against the vast expanse of space.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com

Read Entire Article