At 152,000 miles per hour — fast enough to circle Earth six times in one minute — a massive interstellar comet is passing through our solar system, offering astronomers the first good look at a chunk of another star's leftovers.
"This thing is coming in at such an incredible speed that absolutely nothing in the Solar System could have caused this," said astronomer Jonti Horner. The comet, designated 3I/ATLAS, is bigger than Manhattan and marks only the third time humans have spotted a visitor from beyond our cosmic neighborhood.
Unlike its predecessors — a weird cigar-shaped rock called 'Oumuamua and a smaller comet named Borisov — this newcomer will stick around long enough for detailed study. As it races toward an October rendezvous with the Sun, telescopes worldwide will analyze its chemical makeup to learn what other solar systems are made of.
"We've got at least eight months we'll be able to observe it," Horner told ABC News (Australia). And with the new Vera C. Rubin Observatory coming online — a telescope so powerful it spotted 2,000 previously unknown asteroids in its first 10 hours — more interstellar visitors may soon be discovered. "It's kind of a sneak peek into the future," Horner said.
