Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS has spent the last several months on a tour of our solar system. NASA spacecraft and telescopes have snapped photos of this celestial visitor over the course of its journey, and after weeks of anticipation, the agency has finally unveiled these never-before-seen images. During a press conference held at NASA’s Goddard Space […]
Radio Signal Crushes Alien Theory About Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS
Ever since astronomers first detected interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS in July, speculation about its true nature has run wild. Some experts speculate it isn’t a comet at all but rather an extraterrestrial spacecraft sent to sniff around our solar system. New evidence has dumped cold water on this provocative hypothesis. MeerKAT, a radio telescope operated by […]
This Visiting Interstellar Comet Just Keeps Getting Weirder
Ever since interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS whizzed into our cosmic neighborhood in July, astronomers have been racing to uncover its characteristics. Now that the powerful James Webb Space Telescope has taken a good look at this icy interloper, it seems to be weirder than anyone imagined. A preprint submitted to the Astrophysical Journal Letters for peer […]
An Interstellar Comet Is Here, and Its Age Is Mind-Bending
This article was updated at 9:00 a.m. ET on Friday, July 11, to include new information. After defending his PhD thesis on modeling interstellar objects on Monday, June 30, Matthew Hopkins intended to take some well-deserved time off. It would appear the universe had other plans for him. The very next day, the Atlas Terrestrial-impact […]