'An exceedingly rare event': See a pair of nova explosions shining in the southern sky this week.
Anthony Wood
Thu, July 3, 2025
The bright novas V572 Velorum (left) and V462 Lupi (right) are currently visible in the southern hemisphere night sky. | Credit: Eliot Herman
Not one, but two exploding stars are currently visible to the naked eye in the southern night sky, a cosmic coincidence that's "exceedingly rare" and may soon vanish from view entirely.
On June 12, the All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASAS-SN), led by the Ohio State University, detected a dramatic surge in the brightness of an otherwise unremarkable star embedded in the constellation Lupus. Subsequent observations revealed a powerful nova explosion — now designated V462 Lupi — to be the cause of the radiation outburst. The star quickly brightened from its previously dim magnitude of +22 to a peak brightness of around +5.5, rendering it visible to the naked eye.
Remember, magnitude is the system used by astronomers to track the brightness of an object in the night sky. The lower the magnitude, the brighter the object! The human eye is capable of detecting stars with a magnitude of around +6.5 or greater in dark sky areas.
Less than two weeks later, on June 25, reports began to circulate of a second nova blossoming in the southern night sky, this time in the constellation Vela. This nova — later designated V572 Velorum — quickly jumped to a similar peak of +5.5, making it appear as if two new stars had suddenly burst to life in the skies south of the equator.
A nuclear explosion on the surface of a star
"Both appear to be part of binary star systems composed of a white dwarf and a companion star," veteran science communicator and meteorologist Joe Rao told Space.com in an email. "In each case, the objects that we are able to see visually, are likely being caused by a thermonuclear explosion on the surface of the white dwarf star."
These kinds of explosions are called novas. Unlike,their more violent cousins, supernovas, these events don't destroy the star. Instead, they occur as a result of a vampyric process in which the gravitational influence of a white dwarf strips material from a nearby companion star, adding it to its own mass. This ‘feeding’ continues until the mass of stolen stellar material deposited on the surface of the white dwarf is heated to a critical threshold, after which a cataclysmic thermonuclear explosion is inevitable.
The resulting outpouring of radiation leads to a dramatic increase in a star's apparent brightness from our perspective on Earth, occasionally making it appear as if a new stellar body has burst to life in the night sky.
A comparison of two nova explosions and the difference in their luminosity. | Credit: Eliot Herman
"To have two naked-eye novae shining in the sky at the same time is an exceedingly rare event"
"To have two naked-eye novae shining in the sky at the same time is an exceedingly rare event," said Rao. "In checking my copy of Norton's Star Atlas, which lists bright novae dating back to the 16th century, I can only find one other case of two novae erupting so close together: V368 Aquilae on September 25, 1936 and V630 Sagittarii just eight days later."
Rao — who serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York's Hayden Planetarium — went on to note that the 1936 novas had faded swiftly after reaching their peaks and likely wouldn't have been visible simultaneously. Astronomer Stephen James O'Meara also discovered a 2018 occurrence in which two novas peaked and became visible to the unaided eye on the same day, according to stargazing website Earthsky.org.
Where to find the novas in the southern sky
"Generally speaking, most novae fade from view after a few weeks, although some may fade much faster (as was the case with the aforementioned novae in 1936) and sometimes the fade-down may take longer," said Rao. "In the case of V572 Velorum, it apparently exhibits both long (over 13 days) and short (3-4 days) outbursts."
The location of the V462 Lupi nova shown close to the constellations Lupus and Centaurus. | Credit: Created in Canva by Daisy Dobrijevic
It may still be possible to spot the ancient light from both novas from a dark sky location for observers in the southern hemisphere. Meanwhile, those in the southern U.S. might yet glimpse V462 Lupi peeking above the horizon — perhaps with the aid of a pair of 10X50 binoculars.
The patch of sky containing V462 Lupi is located in the constellation Lupus, close to the bright stars Delta Lupi and Kappa Centauri, from the neighboring constellation Centaurus. Lupus will be highest in the sky for those in the southern hemisphere, though those in the southernmost states of the U.S. may spot the constellation — and the site of the nova — close to the southern horizon at sunset in early July.
A star chart showing the location of the V572 Velorum nova alongside stars from the constellation Vela. | Credit: IAU and Sky & Telescope, annotations by Anthony Wood
V572 Velorum meanwhile, can be found in the southern constellation Vela and is not easily visible from the continental United States. Viewers in the southern hemisphere will find the region of sky containing the nova close to the bright stars Mu Velorum and Phi Velorum.
If you do manage to catch even a fleeting glimpse of either V572 Velorum, or V462 Lupi, you will have witnessed first hand one of the most spectacularly violent explosions that the universe has to offer. Not bad for one evening’s stargazing.
Anthony Wood
Thu, July 3, 2025
SPACE.COM
The bright novas V572 Velorum (left) and V462 Lupi (right) are currently visible in the southern hemisphere night sky. | Credit: Eliot Herman
Not one, but two exploding stars are currently visible to the naked eye in the southern night sky, a cosmic coincidence that's "exceedingly rare" and may soon vanish from view entirely.
On June 12, the All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASAS-SN), led by the Ohio State University, detected a dramatic surge in the brightness of an otherwise unremarkable star embedded in the constellation Lupus. Subsequent observations revealed a powerful nova explosion — now designated V462 Lupi — to be the cause of the radiation outburst. The star quickly brightened from its previously dim magnitude of +22 to a peak brightness of around +5.5, rendering it visible to the naked eye.
Remember, magnitude is the system used by astronomers to track the brightness of an object in the night sky. The lower the magnitude, the brighter the object! The human eye is capable of detecting stars with a magnitude of around +6.5 or greater in dark sky areas.
Less than two weeks later, on June 25, reports began to circulate of a second nova blossoming in the southern night sky, this time in the constellation Vela. This nova — later designated V572 Velorum — quickly jumped to a similar peak of +5.5, making it appear as if two new stars had suddenly burst to life in the skies south of the equator.
A nuclear explosion on the surface of a star
"Both appear to be part of binary star systems composed of a white dwarf and a companion star," veteran science communicator and meteorologist Joe Rao told Space.com in an email. "In each case, the objects that we are able to see visually, are likely being caused by a thermonuclear explosion on the surface of the white dwarf star."
These kinds of explosions are called novas. Unlike,their more violent cousins, supernovas, these events don't destroy the star. Instead, they occur as a result of a vampyric process in which the gravitational influence of a white dwarf strips material from a nearby companion star, adding it to its own mass. This ‘feeding’ continues until the mass of stolen stellar material deposited on the surface of the white dwarf is heated to a critical threshold, after which a cataclysmic thermonuclear explosion is inevitable.
The resulting outpouring of radiation leads to a dramatic increase in a star's apparent brightness from our perspective on Earth, occasionally making it appear as if a new stellar body has burst to life in the night sky.
A comparison of two nova explosions and the difference in their luminosity. | Credit: Eliot Herman
"To have two naked-eye novae shining in the sky at the same time is an exceedingly rare event"
"To have two naked-eye novae shining in the sky at the same time is an exceedingly rare event," said Rao. "In checking my copy of Norton's Star Atlas, which lists bright novae dating back to the 16th century, I can only find one other case of two novae erupting so close together: V368 Aquilae on September 25, 1936 and V630 Sagittarii just eight days later."
Rao — who serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York's Hayden Planetarium — went on to note that the 1936 novas had faded swiftly after reaching their peaks and likely wouldn't have been visible simultaneously. Astronomer Stephen James O'Meara also discovered a 2018 occurrence in which two novas peaked and became visible to the unaided eye on the same day, according to stargazing website Earthsky.org.
Where to find the novas in the southern sky
"Generally speaking, most novae fade from view after a few weeks, although some may fade much faster (as was the case with the aforementioned novae in 1936) and sometimes the fade-down may take longer," said Rao. "In the case of V572 Velorum, it apparently exhibits both long (over 13 days) and short (3-4 days) outbursts."
The location of the V462 Lupi nova shown close to the constellations Lupus and Centaurus. | Credit: Created in Canva by Daisy Dobrijevic
It may still be possible to spot the ancient light from both novas from a dark sky location for observers in the southern hemisphere. Meanwhile, those in the southern U.S. might yet glimpse V462 Lupi peeking above the horizon — perhaps with the aid of a pair of 10X50 binoculars.
The patch of sky containing V462 Lupi is located in the constellation Lupus, close to the bright stars Delta Lupi and Kappa Centauri, from the neighboring constellation Centaurus. Lupus will be highest in the sky for those in the southern hemisphere, though those in the southernmost states of the U.S. may spot the constellation — and the site of the nova — close to the southern horizon at sunset in early July.
A star chart showing the location of the V572 Velorum nova alongside stars from the constellation Vela. | Credit: IAU and Sky & Telescope, annotations by Anthony Wood
V572 Velorum meanwhile, can be found in the southern constellation Vela and is not easily visible from the continental United States. Viewers in the southern hemisphere will find the region of sky containing the nova close to the bright stars Mu Velorum and Phi Velorum.
If you do manage to catch even a fleeting glimpse of either V572 Velorum, or V462 Lupi, you will have witnessed first hand one of the most spectacularly violent explosions that the universe has to offer. Not bad for one evening’s stargazing.
Giant radio telescope in the Utah desert could reveal hidden corners of the cosmos — and brand-new physics
Paul Sutter
Fri, July 4, 2025
A composite image of the South African MeerKAT radio telescope array with vast, cosmic bubbles of radio energy in the background. A similar array called the Deep Synoptic Array 2000 has been proposed for construction in the Utah desert. | Credit: South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO)More
A gigantic array of radio dishes proposed for the Utah desert could advance our understanding of physics and help us decode cosmic radio signals. Now, scientists have outlined how it would work.
Beginning in the 1950s, radio astronomy has opened up a powerful view into the inner workings of the universe, revealing everything from how stars form to incredible images of our galaxy's gigantic black hole. Now, astronomers are building a gigantic array of radio dishes, called the Deep Synoptic Array 2000 (DSA-2000). The array consists of 2,000 radio dishes, each 16 feet (5 meters) across, laid out in a radio-quiet part of the Utah desert.
Now, an international team of astronomers has demonstrated how DSA-2000 will be a premier instrument for revealing some of the most hidden corners, particles and processes in the cosmos.
Because DSA-2000 will have both a wide field of view and a high resolution, it will be like the world's ultimate digital camera but at radio frequencies, the team explained in a paper uploaded to the preprint database arXiv in May. These capabilities will allow the DSA-2000 to detect a wide variety of phenomena that are not possible with our current radio telescopes.
And there are a whole lot of unexplored radio transmissions in the universe. For example, astronomers think the vast majority of the mass of every galaxy comes in the form of dark matter, an invisible entity that has so far escaped direct detection.
One potential candidate for dark matter is called the axion, a hypothetical particle trillions of times lighter than the lightest known particles. Axions can collect around dense objects like neutron stars, and under the influence of extremely strong magnetic fields (which neutron stars have in spades), they can convert to photons with just the right frequency range that DSA-2000 could pick up those signals.
Related: 'Staggering' first images from Vera C. Rubin Observatory show 10 million galaxies — and billions more are on the way
Another candidate for dark matter is called the dark photon, which is like our normal, familiar photons (light particles) but … dark. Dark photons can also collect around neutron stars, where they can get whipped up into a frenzy due to the star's extreme rotation. In a process called superradiance, the dark photons get boosted to extremely high energies, where they start to resonate with regular photons, giving off blasts of signals that could be directly detected by DSA-2000.
This means that DSA-2000 could potentially offer our first direct glimpse of a new form of matter in the universe. But that's not all.
In 2023, astronomers with the NANOGrav experiment announced the detection of gravitational waves through pulsar timing arrays. DSA-2000 could take that one step further by precisely measuring the rotation rates of approximately 3,000 pulsars — rapidly spinning neutron stars that pulsate in regular intervals. This would allow the new instrument to find any subtle variations in the spins of pulsars, such as those due to unseen orbiting companions, like black holes or small clumps of dark matter.
Lastly, DSA-2000 could detect tens of thousands of fast radio bursts (FRBs) — tremendous explosions that manifest as blips and bloops in the radio spectrum. This unprecedented number of detections would allow scientists to build a comprehensive survey of the nearby universe, which would aid our understanding of everything from dark energy to the nature of ghostly particles called neutrinos.
Video of SpaceX's explosive starship test aftermath sparks outrage: 'Send Elon a bill for cleanup'
Matthew Swigonski
Thu, July 3, 2025
Video of SpaceX's explosive starship test aftermath sparks outrage: 'Send Elon a bill for cleanup'
Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.Generate Key Takeaways
On the heels of Elon Musk's well-documented struggles with Tesla in 2025, the billionaire has once again faced adversity with the recent explosion of a SpaceX Starship.
On May 27, SpaceX's Starship rocket exploded during a test flight after launching from Starbase, Texas. Just 46 minutes after launch, the ship broke up and crashed into the Indian Ocean. This was just the ninth flight test of the Starship and Super Heavy booster.
Following the launch, countless bits and pieces of the ship found their way into the ocean waters below. Just a few days later, debris from the Starship began to wash ashore on Mexican beaches.
Weather forecasting service AccuWeather (@accuweather) posted an Instagram video documenting the amount of debris that reached the shore. "Now, everything from plastic shards to giant gas tanks is being found along Playa Bagdad, about 200 miles south of Corpus Christi," the narrator noted.
Musk took to the social platform X to explain the failure and attempted to take an optimistic approach to the explosion.
"Starship made it to the scheduled ship engine cutoff, so big improvement over last flight! Also, no significant loss of heat shield tiles during ascent," he wrote. "Leaks caused loss of main tank pressure during the coast and re-entry phase. Lot of good data to review."
Although Musk appeared unbothered, many commenters under AccuWeather's post were troubled by the amount of potentially harmful materials that ended up in the environment.
"Send Elon a bill for cleanup," one user quipped. "He can afford it."
"Environmental Vandalism. Musk should be charged for this atrocity," another user wrote.
A third user shared the same frustrations as the previous commenters: "What we humans are doing to this earth is disgusting! Instead of searching for life on other planets take that money and fix THIS planet!"
According to NASA, there is a risk of toxic exposure to chemical contaminants from many spacecraft components. This includes environmental system and payload leaks, potentially hazardous materials, and the use of utility compounds and propellants.
Nichole Ayers snapped a giant red sprite sprawling out over an upward-shotting bolt of lightning during a massive thunderstorm on July 3. | Credit: NASA/ISS/Nichole Ayers
A NASA astronaut has captured an electrifying image of Earth from space, featuring a gigantic, jellyfish-shaped "sprite" of red lightning shooting upwards above a thunderstorm in North America. The rare phenomenon is still poorly understood, despite being studied for more than 30 years.
Nichole Ayers, the pilot of SpaceX's Crew-10 mission and member of International Space Station (ISS) expeditions 72 and 73, snapped the striking photo on Thursday (July 3) as the space station passed above a large thunderstorm hanging over parts of Mexico and the southern U.S., including California and Texas.
"Just. Wow. As we went over Mexico and the U.S. this morning, I caught this sprite," Ayers wrote on the social platform X. "Sprites are TLEs or Transient Luminous Events, that happen above the clouds and are triggered by intense electrical activity in the thunderstorms below," she added.
TLEs are a range of visual phenomena that occur in the upper atmosphere during thunderstorms, including upward-shooting blue jets and UFO-like rings of light, known as ELVES. However, the most common TLEs are sprites, like the one photographed by Ayers.
Sprites are sometimes referred to as jellyfish because they contain multiple branches of light that spread out like tentacles, while others call them "carrots" because they can be accompanied by fainter tendrils that trail behind them in the opposite direction like plant roots. They are often associated with large thunderstorms, including those produced by hurricanes.
Related: Electrifying time-lapse image captures 100 lightning bolts torching the sky
The red sprite in the new photo likely towered up to 50 miles above Earth's surface.
Paul Sutter
Fri, July 4, 2025
LIVE SCIENCE
A composite image of the South African MeerKAT radio telescope array with vast, cosmic bubbles of radio energy in the background. A similar array called the Deep Synoptic Array 2000 has been proposed for construction in the Utah desert. | Credit: South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO)More
A gigantic array of radio dishes proposed for the Utah desert could advance our understanding of physics and help us decode cosmic radio signals. Now, scientists have outlined how it would work.
Beginning in the 1950s, radio astronomy has opened up a powerful view into the inner workings of the universe, revealing everything from how stars form to incredible images of our galaxy's gigantic black hole. Now, astronomers are building a gigantic array of radio dishes, called the Deep Synoptic Array 2000 (DSA-2000). The array consists of 2,000 radio dishes, each 16 feet (5 meters) across, laid out in a radio-quiet part of the Utah desert.
Now, an international team of astronomers has demonstrated how DSA-2000 will be a premier instrument for revealing some of the most hidden corners, particles and processes in the cosmos.
Because DSA-2000 will have both a wide field of view and a high resolution, it will be like the world's ultimate digital camera but at radio frequencies, the team explained in a paper uploaded to the preprint database arXiv in May. These capabilities will allow the DSA-2000 to detect a wide variety of phenomena that are not possible with our current radio telescopes.
And there are a whole lot of unexplored radio transmissions in the universe. For example, astronomers think the vast majority of the mass of every galaxy comes in the form of dark matter, an invisible entity that has so far escaped direct detection.
One potential candidate for dark matter is called the axion, a hypothetical particle trillions of times lighter than the lightest known particles. Axions can collect around dense objects like neutron stars, and under the influence of extremely strong magnetic fields (which neutron stars have in spades), they can convert to photons with just the right frequency range that DSA-2000 could pick up those signals.
Related: 'Staggering' first images from Vera C. Rubin Observatory show 10 million galaxies — and billions more are on the way
Another candidate for dark matter is called the dark photon, which is like our normal, familiar photons (light particles) but … dark. Dark photons can also collect around neutron stars, where they can get whipped up into a frenzy due to the star's extreme rotation. In a process called superradiance, the dark photons get boosted to extremely high energies, where they start to resonate with regular photons, giving off blasts of signals that could be directly detected by DSA-2000.
This means that DSA-2000 could potentially offer our first direct glimpse of a new form of matter in the universe. But that's not all.
In 2023, astronomers with the NANOGrav experiment announced the detection of gravitational waves through pulsar timing arrays. DSA-2000 could take that one step further by precisely measuring the rotation rates of approximately 3,000 pulsars — rapidly spinning neutron stars that pulsate in regular intervals. This would allow the new instrument to find any subtle variations in the spins of pulsars, such as those due to unseen orbiting companions, like black holes or small clumps of dark matter.
Lastly, DSA-2000 could detect tens of thousands of fast radio bursts (FRBs) — tremendous explosions that manifest as blips and bloops in the radio spectrum. This unprecedented number of detections would allow scientists to build a comprehensive survey of the nearby universe, which would aid our understanding of everything from dark energy to the nature of ghostly particles called neutrinos.
Video of SpaceX's explosive starship test aftermath sparks outrage: 'Send Elon a bill for cleanup'
Matthew Swigonski
Thu, July 3, 2025
Video of SpaceX's explosive starship test aftermath sparks outrage: 'Send Elon a bill for cleanup'
Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.Generate Key Takeaways
On the heels of Elon Musk's well-documented struggles with Tesla in 2025, the billionaire has once again faced adversity with the recent explosion of a SpaceX Starship.
On May 27, SpaceX's Starship rocket exploded during a test flight after launching from Starbase, Texas. Just 46 minutes after launch, the ship broke up and crashed into the Indian Ocean. This was just the ninth flight test of the Starship and Super Heavy booster.
Following the launch, countless bits and pieces of the ship found their way into the ocean waters below. Just a few days later, debris from the Starship began to wash ashore on Mexican beaches.
Weather forecasting service AccuWeather (@accuweather) posted an Instagram video documenting the amount of debris that reached the shore. "Now, everything from plastic shards to giant gas tanks is being found along Playa Bagdad, about 200 miles south of Corpus Christi," the narrator noted.
Musk took to the social platform X to explain the failure and attempted to take an optimistic approach to the explosion.
"Starship made it to the scheduled ship engine cutoff, so big improvement over last flight! Also, no significant loss of heat shield tiles during ascent," he wrote. "Leaks caused loss of main tank pressure during the coast and re-entry phase. Lot of good data to review."
Although Musk appeared unbothered, many commenters under AccuWeather's post were troubled by the amount of potentially harmful materials that ended up in the environment.
"Send Elon a bill for cleanup," one user quipped. "He can afford it."
"Environmental Vandalism. Musk should be charged for this atrocity," another user wrote.
A third user shared the same frustrations as the previous commenters: "What we humans are doing to this earth is disgusting! Instead of searching for life on other planets take that money and fix THIS planet!"
According to NASA, there is a risk of toxic exposure to chemical contaminants from many spacecraft components. This includes environmental system and payload leaks, potentially hazardous materials, and the use of utility compounds and propellants.
Astronaut snaps giant red 'jellyfish' sprite over North America during upward-shooting lightning event
Harry Baker
Fri, July 4, 2025
Fri, July 4, 2025
Nichole Ayers snapped a giant red sprite sprawling out over an upward-shotting bolt of lightning during a massive thunderstorm on July 3. | Credit: NASA/ISS/Nichole Ayers
A NASA astronaut has captured an electrifying image of Earth from space, featuring a gigantic, jellyfish-shaped "sprite" of red lightning shooting upwards above a thunderstorm in North America. The rare phenomenon is still poorly understood, despite being studied for more than 30 years.
Nichole Ayers, the pilot of SpaceX's Crew-10 mission and member of International Space Station (ISS) expeditions 72 and 73, snapped the striking photo on Thursday (July 3) as the space station passed above a large thunderstorm hanging over parts of Mexico and the southern U.S., including California and Texas.
"Just. Wow. As we went over Mexico and the U.S. this morning, I caught this sprite," Ayers wrote on the social platform X. "Sprites are TLEs or Transient Luminous Events, that happen above the clouds and are triggered by intense electrical activity in the thunderstorms below," she added.
TLEs are a range of visual phenomena that occur in the upper atmosphere during thunderstorms, including upward-shooting blue jets and UFO-like rings of light, known as ELVES. However, the most common TLEs are sprites, like the one photographed by Ayers.
Sprites are sometimes referred to as jellyfish because they contain multiple branches of light that spread out like tentacles, while others call them "carrots" because they can be accompanied by fainter tendrils that trail behind them in the opposite direction like plant roots. They are often associated with large thunderstorms, including those produced by hurricanes.
Related: Electrifying time-lapse image captures 100 lightning bolts torching the sky
The red sprite in the new photo likely towered up to 50 miles above Earth's surface.
| Credit: NASA/ISS/Nichole Ayers
Sprites can range in size and shape, with the largest reaching up to 50 miles (80 kilometers) above Earth's surface. They have a red color because they interact with nitrogen in the upper atmosphere, according to NASA's Earth Observatory.
Sprites were first properly observed in the 1950s by airline passengers but were not photographed until 1989. The red jellyfish have also been spotted in the atmosphere of Jupiter, and they are thought to occur on Saturn and Venus, according to Live Science's sister site Space.com.
But despite years of research, researchers are still unsure why some lightning strikes cause sprites and others don't, according to FOX Weather.
TLEs from space
Sprites and other TLEs can be photographed from Earth's surface if the conditions are right. However, ISS astronauts are uniquely well-positioned to see TLEs and frequently see the flashes of lightning strikes at the same time, providing useful data to help researchers figure out how these phenomena work.
Sprites can range in size and shape, with the largest reaching up to 50 miles (80 kilometers) above Earth's surface. They have a red color because they interact with nitrogen in the upper atmosphere, according to NASA's Earth Observatory.
Sprites were first properly observed in the 1950s by airline passengers but were not photographed until 1989. The red jellyfish have also been spotted in the atmosphere of Jupiter, and they are thought to occur on Saturn and Venus, according to Live Science's sister site Space.com.
But despite years of research, researchers are still unsure why some lightning strikes cause sprites and others don't, according to FOX Weather.
TLEs from space
Sprites and other TLEs can be photographed from Earth's surface if the conditions are right. However, ISS astronauts are uniquely well-positioned to see TLEs and frequently see the flashes of lightning strikes at the same time, providing useful data to help researchers figure out how these phenomena work.
New interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS is hurtling through the solar system — and you can watch it online
Daisy Dobrijevic
Thu, July 3, 2025
Daisy Dobrijevic
Thu, July 3, 2025
SPACE.COM
Trajectory of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS as it passes through the solar system. | Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
But it's expected to brighten slightly as it approaches perihelion (closest point to the sun) on Oct. 30, when it will pass just 1.4 AU (130 million miles or 210 million km) from the sun inside the orbit of Mars.
The Virtual Telescope Project captured a photo of the interstellar visitor on July 2, using one of its robotic telescopes to track the object's motion across the sky. In the 120-second exposure, the comet appears as a sharp point of light, while the background stars show short trails due to their relative movement.
3I/ATLAS imaged on July 2 by Gianluca Masi of the Virtual Telescope Project. | Credit: Gianluca Masi, The Virtual Telescope Project
The object is speeding through the solar system at 68 kilometers per second (152,000 mph) relative to the sun, and it poses no threat to Earth, according to NASA.
After dipping behind the sun in late fall, 3I/ATLAS is expected to reappear in early December, giving astronomers another chance to study this rare visitor from beyond our cosmic neighborhood.
Astronomers have discovered another puzzling interstellar object − this third one is big, bright and fast
Darryl Z. Seligman,
A hyperbolic orbit isn’t a closed loop, as this rendering of ‘Oumuamua’s trajectory shows. All the planets have oval-shaped elliptical orbits, which close in a loop. The interstellar object instead passes through but doesn’t come back around. Tomruen/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SAMore
And then once you get past an eccentricity of one, you go from an ellipse to a hyperbolic orbit, and that is unbound. So while an elliptical orbit is stretched out, it still orbits and comes back around. An object with a hyperbolic orbit comes through and it leaves, but it never comes back. That type of orbit tells you that it didn’t come from this solar system.
When researchers are collecting data, they’re getting points of light on the sky, and they don’t know how far away they are. It’s not like they see them and can just tell, “oh, that’s eccentric.” What they’re seeing is how far away the object is compared with other stars in the background, what its position is and how fast it’s moving. And then from that data, they try to fit the orbit.
This object is moving fast for how far away it is, and that’s what’s telling us that it could be hyperbolic. If something is moving fast enough, it’ll escape from the solar system. So a hyperbolic, unbound object inherently has to be moving faster.
This is a real-time process. My collaborators have preexisting software, which will, every night, get new observations of all the small bodies and objects in the solar system. It will figure out and update what the orbits are in real time. We’re getting data points, and with more data we can refine which orbit fits the points best.
What can scientists learn from an interstellar object?
Objects like this are pristine, primordial remnants from the planet formation process in other planetary systems. The small bodies in our solar system have taught us quite a lot about how the planets in the solar system formed and evolved. This could be a new window into understanding planet formation throughout the galaxy.
As we’re looking through the incoming data, we’re trying to figure out whether it’s a comet. In the next couple of weeks, there will likely be way more information available to say if it has a cometary tail like Borisov, or if it has an acceleration that’s not due to a gravitational pull, like ’Oumuamua.
If it is a comet, researchers really want to figure out whether it’s icy. If it contains ices, that tells you a ton about it. The chemistry of these small bodies is the most important aspect when it comes to understanding planet formation, because the chemical composition tells you about the conditions the object’s solar system was in when the object formed.
For example, if the object has a lot of ices in it, you would know that wherever it came from, it didn’t spend much time near a star, because those ices would have melted. If it has a lot of ice in it, that could tell you that it formed really far away from a star and then got ejected by something massive, such as a planet the size of Jupiter or Neptune.
Fundamentally, this object could tell astronomers more about a population of objects that we don’t fully understand, or about the conditions in another solar system.
We’ve had a couple of hours to get some preliminary observations. I suspect that practically every telescope is going to be looking at this object for the next couple of nights, so we’ll get much more information about it very soon.
This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Darryl Z. Seligman, Michigan State University
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Credit: Interstellar object: Virtual Telescope Project, graphic made in Canva by Daisy Dobrijevic
A rare but faint interstellar visitor from beyond our solar system is racing toward the sun — and you can watch it online
Astronomers have identified this cosmic interloper as 3I/ATLAS, making it only the third confirmed object from outside the solar system after 'Oumuamua (2017) and comet 2I/Borisov (2019). The interstellar comet, originally designated C/2025 N1 (ATLAS), was observed on July 1 by the NASA-funded ATLAS (Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System) telescope in Rio Hurtado, Chile. It has since been designated 3I/ATLAS by the Minor Planet Center (MPC), with "3I" marking it as the third known interstellar object.
"There are tentative reports of cometary activity," The MPC report states. "With a marginal coma and a short 3" tail".
You can watch comet 3I/ATLAS live online tonight (July 3), thanks to the Virtual Telescope Project, which will livestream views beginning at 6:00 p.m. EDT (2200 GMT). The feed will showcase imagery from telescopes in Manciano, Italy, weather permitting. Tune in via Virtual Telescope's WebTV, YouTube channel or here on Space.com.
Currently, 3I/ATLAS is about 4.5 astronomical units (AU) — or 670 million kilometers (416 million miles) — from the sun according to NASA, and around magnitude 18.8, far too faint for backyard telescopes.
Credit: Interstellar object: Virtual Telescope Project, graphic made in Canva by Daisy Dobrijevic
A rare but faint interstellar visitor from beyond our solar system is racing toward the sun — and you can watch it online
Astronomers have identified this cosmic interloper as 3I/ATLAS, making it only the third confirmed object from outside the solar system after 'Oumuamua (2017) and comet 2I/Borisov (2019). The interstellar comet, originally designated C/2025 N1 (ATLAS), was observed on July 1 by the NASA-funded ATLAS (Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System) telescope in Rio Hurtado, Chile. It has since been designated 3I/ATLAS by the Minor Planet Center (MPC), with "3I" marking it as the third known interstellar object.
"There are tentative reports of cometary activity," The MPC report states. "With a marginal coma and a short 3" tail".
You can watch comet 3I/ATLAS live online tonight (July 3), thanks to the Virtual Telescope Project, which will livestream views beginning at 6:00 p.m. EDT (2200 GMT). The feed will showcase imagery from telescopes in Manciano, Italy, weather permitting. Tune in via Virtual Telescope's WebTV, YouTube channel or here on Space.com.
Currently, 3I/ATLAS is about 4.5 astronomical units (AU) — or 670 million kilometers (416 million miles) — from the sun according to NASA, and around magnitude 18.8, far too faint for backyard telescopes.
Trajectory of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS as it passes through the solar system. | Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
But it's expected to brighten slightly as it approaches perihelion (closest point to the sun) on Oct. 30, when it will pass just 1.4 AU (130 million miles or 210 million km) from the sun inside the orbit of Mars.
The Virtual Telescope Project captured a photo of the interstellar visitor on July 2, using one of its robotic telescopes to track the object's motion across the sky. In the 120-second exposure, the comet appears as a sharp point of light, while the background stars show short trails due to their relative movement.
3I/ATLAS imaged on July 2 by Gianluca Masi of the Virtual Telescope Project. | Credit: Gianluca Masi, The Virtual Telescope Project
The object is speeding through the solar system at 68 kilometers per second (152,000 mph) relative to the sun, and it poses no threat to Earth, according to NASA.
After dipping behind the sun in late fall, 3I/ATLAS is expected to reappear in early December, giving astronomers another chance to study this rare visitor from beyond our cosmic neighborhood.
Astronomers have discovered another puzzling interstellar object − this third one is big, bright and fast
Darryl Z. Seligman,
Michigan State University
Thu, July 3, 2025
The Haleakala Observatory, left, houses one telescope for the ATLAS system. That system first spotted the object 3I/ATLAS, which isn't visible in this image.
Thu, July 3, 2025
The Haleakala Observatory, left, houses one telescope for the ATLAS system. That system first spotted the object 3I/ATLAS, which isn't visible in this image.
AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson
Astronomers manning an asteroid warning system caught a glimpse of a large, bright object zipping through the solar system late on July 1, 2025. The object’s potentially interstellar origins excited scientists across the globe, and the next morning, the European Space Agency confirmed that this object, first named A11pl3Z and then designated 3I/ATLAS, is the third ever found from outside our solar system.
Current measurements estimate that 3I/ATLAS is about 12 miles (20 kilometers) wide, and while its path won’t take it close to Earth, it could hold clues about the nature of a previous interstellar object and about planet formation in solar systems beyond ours.
On July 2 at 3 p.m. EDT, Mary Magnuson, an associate science editor at The Conversation U.S., spoke to Darryl Z. Seligman, an astrophysicist at Michigan State University who has been studying 3I/ATLAS since its discovery.
What makes 3I/ATLAS different from its predecessors?
We have discovered two interstellar objects so far, ’Oumuamua and Comet 2I/Borisov. ’Oumuamua had no dust tail and a significant nongravitational acceleration, which led to a wide variety of hypotheses regarding its origin. 2I/Borisov was very clearly a comet, though it has a somewhat unique composition compared to comets in our solar system.
All of our preparation for the next interstellar object was preparing for something that looked like a ’Oumuamua, or something that looked like Borisov. And this thing doesn’t look like either of them, which is crazy and exciting.
This object is shockingly bright, and it’s very far away from the Earth. It is significantly bigger than both of the interstellar objects we’ve seen – it is orders of magnitude larger than ’Oumuamua.
For some context, ’Oumuamua was discovered when it was very close to the Earth, but this new object is so large and bright that our telescopes can see it, even though it is still much farther away. This means observatories and telescopes will be able to observe it for much longer than we could for the two previous objects.
It’s huge and it’s much farther away, but it is also much faster.
When I went to bed last night, I saw an alert about this object, but nobody knew what was going on yet. I have a few collaborators who figure out the orbits of things in the solar system, and I expected to wake up to them saying something like “yeah, this isn’t actually interstellar.” Because a lot of times you think you may have found something interesting, but as more data comes in, it becomes less interesting.
Then, when I woke up at 1 a.m., my colleagues who are experts on orbits were saying things like “no, this is definitely interstellar. This is for real.”
How can astronomers tell if something is an interstellar object?
The eccentricity of the object’s orbit is how you know that it’s interstellar. The eccentricity refers to how noncircular an orbit is. So an eccentricity of zero is a pure circle, and as the eccentricity increases, it becomes what’s known as an ellipse – a stretched out circle.
Astronomers manning an asteroid warning system caught a glimpse of a large, bright object zipping through the solar system late on July 1, 2025. The object’s potentially interstellar origins excited scientists across the globe, and the next morning, the European Space Agency confirmed that this object, first named A11pl3Z and then designated 3I/ATLAS, is the third ever found from outside our solar system.
Current measurements estimate that 3I/ATLAS is about 12 miles (20 kilometers) wide, and while its path won’t take it close to Earth, it could hold clues about the nature of a previous interstellar object and about planet formation in solar systems beyond ours.
On July 2 at 3 p.m. EDT, Mary Magnuson, an associate science editor at The Conversation U.S., spoke to Darryl Z. Seligman, an astrophysicist at Michigan State University who has been studying 3I/ATLAS since its discovery.
What makes 3I/ATLAS different from its predecessors?
We have discovered two interstellar objects so far, ’Oumuamua and Comet 2I/Borisov. ’Oumuamua had no dust tail and a significant nongravitational acceleration, which led to a wide variety of hypotheses regarding its origin. 2I/Borisov was very clearly a comet, though it has a somewhat unique composition compared to comets in our solar system.
All of our preparation for the next interstellar object was preparing for something that looked like a ’Oumuamua, or something that looked like Borisov. And this thing doesn’t look like either of them, which is crazy and exciting.
This object is shockingly bright, and it’s very far away from the Earth. It is significantly bigger than both of the interstellar objects we’ve seen – it is orders of magnitude larger than ’Oumuamua.
For some context, ’Oumuamua was discovered when it was very close to the Earth, but this new object is so large and bright that our telescopes can see it, even though it is still much farther away. This means observatories and telescopes will be able to observe it for much longer than we could for the two previous objects.
It’s huge and it’s much farther away, but it is also much faster.
When I went to bed last night, I saw an alert about this object, but nobody knew what was going on yet. I have a few collaborators who figure out the orbits of things in the solar system, and I expected to wake up to them saying something like “yeah, this isn’t actually interstellar.” Because a lot of times you think you may have found something interesting, but as more data comes in, it becomes less interesting.
Then, when I woke up at 1 a.m., my colleagues who are experts on orbits were saying things like “no, this is definitely interstellar. This is for real.”
How can astronomers tell if something is an interstellar object?
The eccentricity of the object’s orbit is how you know that it’s interstellar. The eccentricity refers to how noncircular an orbit is. So an eccentricity of zero is a pure circle, and as the eccentricity increases, it becomes what’s known as an ellipse – a stretched out circle.
A hyperbolic orbit isn’t a closed loop, as this rendering of ‘Oumuamua’s trajectory shows. All the planets have oval-shaped elliptical orbits, which close in a loop. The interstellar object instead passes through but doesn’t come back around. Tomruen/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SAMore
And then once you get past an eccentricity of one, you go from an ellipse to a hyperbolic orbit, and that is unbound. So while an elliptical orbit is stretched out, it still orbits and comes back around. An object with a hyperbolic orbit comes through and it leaves, but it never comes back. That type of orbit tells you that it didn’t come from this solar system.
When researchers are collecting data, they’re getting points of light on the sky, and they don’t know how far away they are. It’s not like they see them and can just tell, “oh, that’s eccentric.” What they’re seeing is how far away the object is compared with other stars in the background, what its position is and how fast it’s moving. And then from that data, they try to fit the orbit.
This object is moving fast for how far away it is, and that’s what’s telling us that it could be hyperbolic. If something is moving fast enough, it’ll escape from the solar system. So a hyperbolic, unbound object inherently has to be moving faster.
This is a real-time process. My collaborators have preexisting software, which will, every night, get new observations of all the small bodies and objects in the solar system. It will figure out and update what the orbits are in real time. We’re getting data points, and with more data we can refine which orbit fits the points best.
What can scientists learn from an interstellar object?
Objects like this are pristine, primordial remnants from the planet formation process in other planetary systems. The small bodies in our solar system have taught us quite a lot about how the planets in the solar system formed and evolved. This could be a new window into understanding planet formation throughout the galaxy.
As we’re looking through the incoming data, we’re trying to figure out whether it’s a comet. In the next couple of weeks, there will likely be way more information available to say if it has a cometary tail like Borisov, or if it has an acceleration that’s not due to a gravitational pull, like ’Oumuamua.
If it is a comet, researchers really want to figure out whether it’s icy. If it contains ices, that tells you a ton about it. The chemistry of these small bodies is the most important aspect when it comes to understanding planet formation, because the chemical composition tells you about the conditions the object’s solar system was in when the object formed.
For example, if the object has a lot of ices in it, you would know that wherever it came from, it didn’t spend much time near a star, because those ices would have melted. If it has a lot of ice in it, that could tell you that it formed really far away from a star and then got ejected by something massive, such as a planet the size of Jupiter or Neptune.
Fundamentally, this object could tell astronomers more about a population of objects that we don’t fully understand, or about the conditions in another solar system.
We’ve had a couple of hours to get some preliminary observations. I suspect that practically every telescope is going to be looking at this object for the next couple of nights, so we’ll get much more information about it very soon.
This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Darryl Z. Seligman, Michigan State University
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Massive interstellar object discovered by Hawaii-operated telescope
Manoa, Hawaii (KHON2) — A new discovery from a University of Hawaii-operated telescope is turning heads in the astronomy world.
Download the free KHON2 app for iOS or Android to stay informed on the latest news
A massive object from outside the solar system is passing through, but the world is not in danger.
It is a rare visitor, astronomers said it is only the third known interstellar object ever discovered. It was detected by a University of Hawaii-operated telescope in Chile, part of the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS).
Astronomers track object that may have originated outside the solar system
“These are really rare so far. It’s only the third one ever. There’s, you know, a million and a half known asteroids and there’s about 30, 35,000 near Earth objects,” said ATLAS astronomer Larry Denneau.
The object — now officially named 3I/ATLAS — is believed to be up to 12 miles wide, much larger than either Oumuamua or Borisov, the two interstellar objects found before it. It is currently hurtling toward the sun at more than 150,000 miles per hour.
“That’s how we know it’s interstellar, right? So, there’s no way that an object that’s orbiting the sun can produce that kind of velocity through the gravitational attraction of the sun,” Denneau said.
3I/ATLAS will pass between Earth and Mars sometime in October, but there is no danger of a collision.
“And so occasionally they find these very rare interstellar things. But in terms of impact risk, we’re more worried about things, that come from within our own solar system,” said UH Manoa Institute for Astronomy associate astronomer Roy Gal.
Scientists believe the object is likely a comet and could become more active as it nears the sun, it will not be visible to the naked eye but telescopes around the world are lining up to observe it.
“They’re exotic in that they’re a rare find since they come from outside the solar system. We don’t know what they’re going to be made of. And so a lot of the telescope proposals that are coming up want to try to study this really carefully to find out, does it have the same stuff that we find in our solar system? We’ll learn something from that,” Denneau said.
The discovery comes as the field of astronomy faces growing uncertainty. Federal funding cuts have already impacted major projects, including Hawaii’s proposed Thirty Meter Telescope.
Check out more news from around Hawaii
“And we’re lucky little bit in that planetary defense is not being cut. So projects like Atlas will continue, but all kinds of other basic research in astronomy, but also in all other sciences is really going to be hit hard “
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved.
Manoa, Hawaii (KHON2) — A new discovery from a University of Hawaii-operated telescope is turning heads in the astronomy world.
Download the free KHON2 app for iOS or Android to stay informed on the latest news
A massive object from outside the solar system is passing through, but the world is not in danger.
It is a rare visitor, astronomers said it is only the third known interstellar object ever discovered. It was detected by a University of Hawaii-operated telescope in Chile, part of the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS).
Astronomers track object that may have originated outside the solar system
“These are really rare so far. It’s only the third one ever. There’s, you know, a million and a half known asteroids and there’s about 30, 35,000 near Earth objects,” said ATLAS astronomer Larry Denneau.
The object — now officially named 3I/ATLAS — is believed to be up to 12 miles wide, much larger than either Oumuamua or Borisov, the two interstellar objects found before it. It is currently hurtling toward the sun at more than 150,000 miles per hour.
“That’s how we know it’s interstellar, right? So, there’s no way that an object that’s orbiting the sun can produce that kind of velocity through the gravitational attraction of the sun,” Denneau said.
3I/ATLAS will pass between Earth and Mars sometime in October, but there is no danger of a collision.
“And so occasionally they find these very rare interstellar things. But in terms of impact risk, we’re more worried about things, that come from within our own solar system,” said UH Manoa Institute for Astronomy associate astronomer Roy Gal.
Scientists believe the object is likely a comet and could become more active as it nears the sun, it will not be visible to the naked eye but telescopes around the world are lining up to observe it.
“They’re exotic in that they’re a rare find since they come from outside the solar system. We don’t know what they’re going to be made of. And so a lot of the telescope proposals that are coming up want to try to study this really carefully to find out, does it have the same stuff that we find in our solar system? We’ll learn something from that,” Denneau said.
The discovery comes as the field of astronomy faces growing uncertainty. Federal funding cuts have already impacted major projects, including Hawaii’s proposed Thirty Meter Telescope.
Check out more news from around Hawaii
“And we’re lucky little bit in that planetary defense is not being cut. So projects like Atlas will continue, but all kinds of other basic research in astronomy, but also in all other sciences is really going to be hit hard “
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved.
NASA confirms that mysterious object shooting through the solar system is an 'interstellar visitor' — and it has a new name
Harry Baker
Thu, July 3, 2025
The newly discovered interstellar object 3I/ATLAS (previously dubbed A11pl3Z) is predicted to shoot past the sun before eventually exiting the solar system. . | Credit: David Rankin/Catalina Sky Survey
NASA scientists have confirmed that a mysterious object shooting toward us through the solar system is an "interstellar object" — only the third of its kind ever seen. Experts have also given the cosmic interloper an official name, and revealed new information about its origins and trajectory.
News of the extrasolar entity, initially dubbed A11pl3Z, broke on Tuesday (July 1), when NASA and the International Astronomical Union (IAU) both listed it as a confirmed object. It was first discovered in data collected between June 25 and June 29 by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS), which automatically scans the night sky using telescopes in Hawaii, Chile and South Africa. Multiple telescopes across the world have subsequently spotted the object in observation data that date back to June 14.
The object is traveling toward the sun extremely fast, at around 152,000 mph (245,000 km/h), and observations suggest that it is set on an extremely flat and straight trajectory, unlike anything else in the solar system. This led many experts to speculate that it originated from beyond the sun's gravitational influence and has enough momentum to shoot straight through our cosmic neighborhood without slowing down.
On Wednesday (July 2), NASA released a statement confirming that A11pl3Z is indeed an interstellar object and will not remain in the solar system for long. The researchers also shared the object's new official name, 3I/ATLAS, and revealed that it is most likely a comet, upending previous assumptions that it was an asteroid. The object's full comet name is C/2025 N1 (ATLAS).
Until now, only two confirmed interstellar visitors have ever been spotted: Comet 2I/Borisov, which was seen sailing through the solar system in 2019; and 'Oumuamua, a cigar-shaped object that made headlines in 2017 when some astronomers argued it was potentially an alien probe, before experts showed it was most likely a hydrogen-spewing space rock.
But scientists have long suspected that many more interstellar interlopers likely pass through our cosmic neighborhood without ever being detected.
The first images of 3I/ATLAS suggested that it may have been an asteroid. However, NASA now predicts that it is a comet. | Credit: David Rankin/Catalina Sky Survey
Researchers initially suspected that 3I/ATLAS was an asteroid, like 'Oumuamua. However, the object has displayed "tentative signs of cometary activity" like 2I/Borisov — including being surrounded by a bright cloud of gas and ice, known as a coma, and having what looks like a tail — according to the IAU's Minor Planet Center. However, more observations are needed to confirm this.
There has been no additional information about the potential comet's size or shape: The current best guess is that it could be up to 12 miles (20 kilometers) across. However, NASA has revealed updated information about its upcoming journey through the solar system.
3I/ATLAS is currently around 4.5 times as far from the sun as Earth is. It will reach its closest point to the sun, or perihelion, on Oct. 30, coming within 1.4 Earth-sun distances, or astronomical units (AU), of our home star. Shortly before this happens, the comet will also make its closest approach to Mars, coming within 0.4 AU of the Red Planet.
Earth will be on the opposite side of the sun to 3I/ATLAS during its solar flyby. The comet will likely make its closest approach to Earth in December, on its journey back out of the solar system. As a result, "the comet poses no threat to Earth and will remain at a [minimum] distance of at least 1.6 astronomical units," NASA officials wrote in the statement.
Until now, only two confirmed interstellar objects have ever been discovered: Comet 2I/Borisov and 'Oumuamua (illustrated here). | Credit: M. Kornmesser/ESO
The interloper is currently too faint to see with amateur stargazing equipment, but it may brighten significantly in the coming weeks and months. However, you can watch it shoot through the solar system via an upcoming livestream from the Virtual Telescope Project, starting at 6:00 p.m. EST on Thursday (July 3).
—An interstellar visitor may have changed the course of 4 solar system planets, study suggests
3I/ATLAS is now "being investigated by astronomers around the world," NASA officials wrote. Researchers will be able to study it until the end of September, when it will become obscured by the sun's light, and again from December onwards when the comet reemerges from behind our home star.
The interstellar visitor will likely be imaged by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory — the world's most powerful optical telescope, which recently released its first images. Some researchers have also suggested using the James Webb Space Telescope and NASA's Mars rovers to photograph the object as it shoots toward the sun.
Harry Baker
Thu, July 3, 2025
The newly discovered interstellar object 3I/ATLAS (previously dubbed A11pl3Z) is predicted to shoot past the sun before eventually exiting the solar system. . | Credit: David Rankin/Catalina Sky Survey
NASA scientists have confirmed that a mysterious object shooting toward us through the solar system is an "interstellar object" — only the third of its kind ever seen. Experts have also given the cosmic interloper an official name, and revealed new information about its origins and trajectory.
News of the extrasolar entity, initially dubbed A11pl3Z, broke on Tuesday (July 1), when NASA and the International Astronomical Union (IAU) both listed it as a confirmed object. It was first discovered in data collected between June 25 and June 29 by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS), which automatically scans the night sky using telescopes in Hawaii, Chile and South Africa. Multiple telescopes across the world have subsequently spotted the object in observation data that date back to June 14.
The object is traveling toward the sun extremely fast, at around 152,000 mph (245,000 km/h), and observations suggest that it is set on an extremely flat and straight trajectory, unlike anything else in the solar system. This led many experts to speculate that it originated from beyond the sun's gravitational influence and has enough momentum to shoot straight through our cosmic neighborhood without slowing down.
On Wednesday (July 2), NASA released a statement confirming that A11pl3Z is indeed an interstellar object and will not remain in the solar system for long. The researchers also shared the object's new official name, 3I/ATLAS, and revealed that it is most likely a comet, upending previous assumptions that it was an asteroid. The object's full comet name is C/2025 N1 (ATLAS).
Until now, only two confirmed interstellar visitors have ever been spotted: Comet 2I/Borisov, which was seen sailing through the solar system in 2019; and 'Oumuamua, a cigar-shaped object that made headlines in 2017 when some astronomers argued it was potentially an alien probe, before experts showed it was most likely a hydrogen-spewing space rock.
But scientists have long suspected that many more interstellar interlopers likely pass through our cosmic neighborhood without ever being detected.
The first images of 3I/ATLAS suggested that it may have been an asteroid. However, NASA now predicts that it is a comet. | Credit: David Rankin/Catalina Sky Survey
Researchers initially suspected that 3I/ATLAS was an asteroid, like 'Oumuamua. However, the object has displayed "tentative signs of cometary activity" like 2I/Borisov — including being surrounded by a bright cloud of gas and ice, known as a coma, and having what looks like a tail — according to the IAU's Minor Planet Center. However, more observations are needed to confirm this.
There has been no additional information about the potential comet's size or shape: The current best guess is that it could be up to 12 miles (20 kilometers) across. However, NASA has revealed updated information about its upcoming journey through the solar system.
3I/ATLAS is currently around 4.5 times as far from the sun as Earth is. It will reach its closest point to the sun, or perihelion, on Oct. 30, coming within 1.4 Earth-sun distances, or astronomical units (AU), of our home star. Shortly before this happens, the comet will also make its closest approach to Mars, coming within 0.4 AU of the Red Planet.
Earth will be on the opposite side of the sun to 3I/ATLAS during its solar flyby. The comet will likely make its closest approach to Earth in December, on its journey back out of the solar system. As a result, "the comet poses no threat to Earth and will remain at a [minimum] distance of at least 1.6 astronomical units," NASA officials wrote in the statement.
Until now, only two confirmed interstellar objects have ever been discovered: Comet 2I/Borisov and 'Oumuamua (illustrated here). | Credit: M. Kornmesser/ESO
The interloper is currently too faint to see with amateur stargazing equipment, but it may brighten significantly in the coming weeks and months. However, you can watch it shoot through the solar system via an upcoming livestream from the Virtual Telescope Project, starting at 6:00 p.m. EST on Thursday (July 3).
—An interstellar visitor may have changed the course of 4 solar system planets, study suggests
3I/ATLAS is now "being investigated by astronomers around the world," NASA officials wrote. Researchers will be able to study it until the end of September, when it will become obscured by the sun's light, and again from December onwards when the comet reemerges from behind our home star.
The interstellar visitor will likely be imaged by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory — the world's most powerful optical telescope, which recently released its first images. Some researchers have also suggested using the James Webb Space Telescope and NASA's Mars rovers to photograph the object as it shoots toward the sun.
Astronomers spot 'interstellar object' speeding through solar system
JULIA JACOBO
Thu, July 3, 2025
Astronomers spot 'interstellar object' speeding through solar system
An "interstellar object" is speeding toward the inner solar system, where Earth is located, astronomers have confirmed.
The object -- likely a comet -- was first detected in data collected between by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, or ATLAS -- an asteroid impact early warning system in Rio Hurtado, Chile, funded by NASA, the space agency announced on Tuesday.
Properties such as a marginal coma and short tail indicate signs of cometary activity, according to the Minor Planet Center.
Numerous telescopes have reported additional observations since the object was first reported, NASA said. Observations from three different ATLAS telescopes around the world -- as well as the Zwicky Transient Facility at the Palomar Observatory in San Diego County, California -- dating back to June 14 were gathered and provided data that supports the existence of the comet, according to a NASA update released Wednesday.
NASA/JPL-Caltech - PHOTO: This diagram shows the trajectory of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS as it passes through the solar system. It will make its closest approach to the Sun in October.
It appears to be originating from interstellar space, arriving from the direction of the constellation Sagittarius, and is currently about 420 million miles from Earth, according to NASA.
The comet poses no threat to Earth and will remain at a distance of at least 150 million miles, astronomers said. It is estimated to reach its closest approach to the sun around Oct. 30, where it will cross at about 130 million miles away, just inside the orbit of Mars, according to NASA
MORE: NASA catches a glimpse of 'city-killer' asteroid before it disappears until 2028
The object, dubbed "A11pl3Z" or "3I/ATLAS," spans approximately 25 miles, Josep Trigo-Rodriguez, as astrophysicist at the Institute of Space Sciences near Barcelona, Spain, told The Associated Press.
It's traveling at a speed of about 152,000 mph and approaching the inner solar system from the bar of the Milky Way, Live Science reported. Its trajectory suggests it did not originate in this solar system, according to EarthSky.org.
David Rankin, Saguaro Observatory/AFP via Getty Images - PHOTO: Interstellar object A11pI3Z captured, June 2, 2025, by David Rankin, engineer at the Catalina Sky Survey at the University of Arizona.More
This is only the third time in history that an interstellar object entering the inner solar system has been recorded.
A cigar-shaped interstellar object called "Oumuamua," the Hawaiian word for "scout," was detected in 2017. And in 2019, an object named "21/Borisov" -- a comet that likely strayed from another star system -- was located.
Astronomers will continue to investigate the size and physical properties of the comet through September, after which it will pass too close to the sun to remain visible, NASA said.
The comet is expected to reappear on the other side of the sun in early December, NASA said.
Scientists tracking ‘interstellar’ object that has come to us from another solar system
Andrew Griffin and Julia Musto
Thu, July 3, 2025
Astronomers may have just discovered a new interstellar object passing through our solar system.
The object, a celestial body from another star system, was discovered on Tuesday by the University of Hawaii’s Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, or ATLAS, team. At this point, it remains unclear what the object may be or look like as it moves near Jupiter.
Now, scientists are checking to confirm their findings.
“ESA’s Planetary Defenders are observing the object, provisionally known as #A11pl3Z, right now using telescopes around the world,” the European Space Agency said in a social media post on Wednesday. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration told The Associated Press that it is monitoring the situation.
David Rankin, of the University of Arizona’s Catalina Sky Survey, said in posts on BlueSky that follow-up observations were made not long after the discovery. A precovery — observations from archival images in which the object was not originally discovered — from CalTech’s Zwicky Transient Facility hinted at the presence of an interstellar object.
Astronomers may have just found the third interstellar object passing through our solar system. The object is seen in this image from Arizona’s Saguaro Observatory (David Rankin, Saguaro Observatory)
“After a few more precovery observations, and follow-ups, it became clear this object is on a hyperbolic trajectory through the solar system,” Rankin wrote.
Since then, new observations have been “rolling in,” helping astronomers to better determine its orbit.
Rankin noted that the first known interstellar object to visit our solar system was ‘Oumuamua, which was spotted in 2017.
An artist’s illustration shows the wayward interstellar visitor `Oumuamua at the outskirts of the solar system. The object was the first known interstellar object to visit our solar system (NASA/ESA/STScI)
Up to one-quarter mile-long and 10 times as long as it is wide, its resembles a rocky cigar with a reddish hue. Its aspect ratio, which is greater than that of any asteroid or comet observed in our solar system to date, even led to speculation that it could be an alien spacecraft.
Observations then suggested that it had been wandering through our Milky Way galaxy for hundreds of millions of years before its encounter with our star system, according to NASA.
The second known object was Comet 2I/Borisov, found in 2019. It is the first confirmed interstellar comet, and was later captured by the Hubble Space Telescope.
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope snapped this image of the comet 2I/Borisov in late 2019. It was the second interstellar object ever discovered (NASA, ESA and D. Jewitt (UCLA))
Scientists believe that many more such objects regularly pass by the Earth, with a number of them flying relatively near to us each year. However, many of them go undetected because they are hard to spot and it is difficult to know for sure where they have come from
Researchers hope to eventually learn more about them and even use them as evidence for distant star systems and planets.
They also hope to find more of them in the years to come, thanks to new and more powerful telescopes, such as the recently switched-on Vera C Rubin Observatory.
JULIA JACOBO
Thu, July 3, 2025
Astronomers spot 'interstellar object' speeding through solar system
An "interstellar object" is speeding toward the inner solar system, where Earth is located, astronomers have confirmed.
The object -- likely a comet -- was first detected in data collected between by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, or ATLAS -- an asteroid impact early warning system in Rio Hurtado, Chile, funded by NASA, the space agency announced on Tuesday.
Properties such as a marginal coma and short tail indicate signs of cometary activity, according to the Minor Planet Center.
Numerous telescopes have reported additional observations since the object was first reported, NASA said. Observations from three different ATLAS telescopes around the world -- as well as the Zwicky Transient Facility at the Palomar Observatory in San Diego County, California -- dating back to June 14 were gathered and provided data that supports the existence of the comet, according to a NASA update released Wednesday.
NASA/JPL-Caltech - PHOTO: This diagram shows the trajectory of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS as it passes through the solar system. It will make its closest approach to the Sun in October.
It appears to be originating from interstellar space, arriving from the direction of the constellation Sagittarius, and is currently about 420 million miles from Earth, according to NASA.
The comet poses no threat to Earth and will remain at a distance of at least 150 million miles, astronomers said. It is estimated to reach its closest approach to the sun around Oct. 30, where it will cross at about 130 million miles away, just inside the orbit of Mars, according to NASA
MORE: NASA catches a glimpse of 'city-killer' asteroid before it disappears until 2028
The object, dubbed "A11pl3Z" or "3I/ATLAS," spans approximately 25 miles, Josep Trigo-Rodriguez, as astrophysicist at the Institute of Space Sciences near Barcelona, Spain, told The Associated Press.
It's traveling at a speed of about 152,000 mph and approaching the inner solar system from the bar of the Milky Way, Live Science reported. Its trajectory suggests it did not originate in this solar system, according to EarthSky.org.
David Rankin, Saguaro Observatory/AFP via Getty Images - PHOTO: Interstellar object A11pI3Z captured, June 2, 2025, by David Rankin, engineer at the Catalina Sky Survey at the University of Arizona.More
This is only the third time in history that an interstellar object entering the inner solar system has been recorded.
A cigar-shaped interstellar object called "Oumuamua," the Hawaiian word for "scout," was detected in 2017. And in 2019, an object named "21/Borisov" -- a comet that likely strayed from another star system -- was located.
Astronomers will continue to investigate the size and physical properties of the comet through September, after which it will pass too close to the sun to remain visible, NASA said.
The comet is expected to reappear on the other side of the sun in early December, NASA said.
Scientists tracking ‘interstellar’ object that has come to us from another solar system
Andrew Griffin and Julia Musto
Thu, July 3, 2025
THE INDEPENDENT
Astronomers may have just discovered a new interstellar object passing through our solar system.
The object, a celestial body from another star system, was discovered on Tuesday by the University of Hawaii’s Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, or ATLAS, team. At this point, it remains unclear what the object may be or look like as it moves near Jupiter.
Now, scientists are checking to confirm their findings.
“ESA’s Planetary Defenders are observing the object, provisionally known as #A11pl3Z, right now using telescopes around the world,” the European Space Agency said in a social media post on Wednesday. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration told The Associated Press that it is monitoring the situation.
David Rankin, of the University of Arizona’s Catalina Sky Survey, said in posts on BlueSky that follow-up observations were made not long after the discovery. A precovery — observations from archival images in which the object was not originally discovered — from CalTech’s Zwicky Transient Facility hinted at the presence of an interstellar object.
Astronomers may have just found the third interstellar object passing through our solar system. The object is seen in this image from Arizona’s Saguaro Observatory (David Rankin, Saguaro Observatory)
“After a few more precovery observations, and follow-ups, it became clear this object is on a hyperbolic trajectory through the solar system,” Rankin wrote.
Since then, new observations have been “rolling in,” helping astronomers to better determine its orbit.
Rankin noted that the first known interstellar object to visit our solar system was ‘Oumuamua, which was spotted in 2017.
An artist’s illustration shows the wayward interstellar visitor `Oumuamua at the outskirts of the solar system. The object was the first known interstellar object to visit our solar system (NASA/ESA/STScI)
Up to one-quarter mile-long and 10 times as long as it is wide, its resembles a rocky cigar with a reddish hue. Its aspect ratio, which is greater than that of any asteroid or comet observed in our solar system to date, even led to speculation that it could be an alien spacecraft.
Observations then suggested that it had been wandering through our Milky Way galaxy for hundreds of millions of years before its encounter with our star system, according to NASA.
The second known object was Comet 2I/Borisov, found in 2019. It is the first confirmed interstellar comet, and was later captured by the Hubble Space Telescope.
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope snapped this image of the comet 2I/Borisov in late 2019. It was the second interstellar object ever discovered (NASA, ESA and D. Jewitt (UCLA))
Scientists believe that many more such objects regularly pass by the Earth, with a number of them flying relatively near to us each year. However, many of them go undetected because they are hard to spot and it is difficult to know for sure where they have come from
Researchers hope to eventually learn more about them and even use them as evidence for distant star systems and planets.
They also hope to find more of them in the years to come, thanks to new and more powerful telescopes, such as the recently switched-on Vera C Rubin Observatory.
