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    Rapid brightening of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS as it nears sun surprises scientists

    November 2, 2025, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Rapid brightening of interstellar comet as it nears the Sun surprises scientists
    Left: Stack of all CCOR-1 frames of 3I/ATLAS (top), and an equivalent stack centered on a nearby star on the same frames, approximating the PSF (bottom). Right: Similar stacks of all HI1 (top), COR2 (middle), and LASCO C3 Clear (bottom) frames of 3I. All stacks are aligned with north up. The heliocentric velocity (+v), and sunward (⊙) or antisunward (−⊙) directions are labeled for the comet at the midpoint time. Credit: arXiv (2025). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2510.25035

    An interstellar comet that originated outside our solar system has just made its closest pass to the sun, brightening dramatically and rapidly as it did so. The reason for the sudden extreme activity is currently puzzling scientists.

    A stranger in the neighborhood
    The latest visitor to our corner of the galaxy was f...

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    3I/ATLAS: Interstellar object ‘may be oldest comet ever seen’

    July 15, 2025, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Newly discovered interstellar object 'may be oldest comet ever seen'
    Top view of the Milky Way galaxy showing the estimated orbits of both our sun and the 3I/ATLAS comet. 3I/ATLAS is shown in red dashed lines, and the sun is shown in yellow dotted lines. The large extent of 3I’s orbit into the outer thick disk is clear, while the sun stays nearer the core of the galaxy. Credit: M. Hopkins/Ōtautahi-Oxford team. Base map: ESA/Gaia/DPAC, Stefan Payne-Wardenaar, CC-BY-SA 4.0

    A mystery interstellar object discovered last week is likely to be the oldest comet ever seen—possibly predating our solar system by more than 3 billion years, researchers say.

    The “water ice-rich” visitor, named 3I/ATLAS, is only the third known object from beyond our solar system ever spotted in our cosmic neighborhood and the first to reach us from a completely different regi...

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