Marcia Dunn
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A wandering comet from another star passes Earth this week for the last time before returning to interstellar space.
Discovered in the summer, the comet known as 3I/Atlas will pass 269 million kilometers (167 million miles) from our planet on Friday, the closest it will get on its long journey through the solar system.
NASA continues to point its space telescopes at the icy ball, which is estimated to be between 440 meters (1,444 feet) and 5.6 kilometers (3.5 miles) in size. But it fades as it moves away, so now is the time for amateur astronomers to capture it in the night sky with their telescopes.
The comet will approach Jupiter in March, passing within 53 million kilometers (33 million miles). That will happen in the mid-2030s, when it will reach interstellar space and never return, said Paul Chodas, director of NASA's Near-Earth Object Research Center.
This is the third known interstellar object to pass through our solar system. Interstellar comets like 3I/Atlas originate in star systems elsewhere in the Milky Way, and local comets like Halley come from the icy outskirts of our solar system.
A telescope in Hawaii discovered the first confirmed interstellar visitor in 2017. Two years later, the interstellar comet was spotted by an amateur astronomer from Crimea. NASA's Atlas Telescope in Chile discovered Comet 3I/Atlas in July while searching for potentially hazardous asteroids.
Scientists believe the latest intruder comet, also harmless, may have originated in a star system much older than ours, making it a tempting target.
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This story was translated from English by an AP editor using a generative artificial intelligence tool.
