James' World 2

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It appears our solar system is getting more popular with out-of-towners. 

Astronomers may have found a third interstellar object, something that has origins beyond our own solar system.

The first interstellar object was ‘Oumuamua, discovered in 2017. The second was a comet called 2I Borisov.

This new object, named 3I/ATLAS, or C/2025 N1 (ATLAS) by the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center, was discovered using a survey telescope called the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS), which serves as an asteroid impact early warning system.

3I/ATLAS is not believed to pose any danger to Earth. 

“We now have observations from over a week or so that indicate that its orbit is pretty clearly interstellar,” said Paul Weigert, a professor at Western University’s department of physics and astronomy in London, Ont. “It’s travelling too fast to be bound to the sun, and so it has presumably come to us from outside our solar system.”

When first discovered, ‘Oumuamua was believed to be an oblong asteroid, but followup observations confirmed that it was a comet, just as 2I Borisov was later. 

Astronomers with new observations have seen some signs of a tail on this new object, meaning it is also likely a comet.

The reason that astronomers believe3I/ATLAS comes from beyond our solar system is due to something called its eccentricity. 

Periodic comets, which orbit the sun repeatedly, tend to have eccentricities between 0.2 and 0.7. Those with numbers greater than one are considered hyperbolic comets and likely originate from the Oort Cloud which surrounds our solar system and contains billions of icy objects. It could also indicate that an object is from beyond our solar system.

Objects with high eccentricities indicate that they come from beyond the solar system. In this case, it’s currently estimated that 3I/ATLAS has an eccentricity of six. As astronomers gather more data over time, this number is likely to change.

So what do we know?

“Right now, it’s beyond the orbit of Mars, so it’s fairly far away,” Weigert said. “It’s almost at Jupiter’s orbit, but it is coming inwards. It won’t get much closer than Mars’ orbit … It’ll be at that closest point in October, so a few months from now, and then it will leave and start heading out of the solar system.”

Good news for Earth.

As for its size, more will be known over time, but right now the indication is that it’s a big one.

“It’s probably about 10 kilometres across,” Weigert said, which would make it the biggest of the three interstellar visitors observed so far. 

So are we sure it’s not an Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) or an Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), a term used by scientists to describe things observed in the sky that remain unexplained?

“Well, certain as we can be,” Weigert said. “It has not demonstrated any unusual behaviour. It’s just travelling through the solar system in exactly the way we would expect for an interstellar object … There’s no indication that it’s in any way unusual in that sense.”

Bummer for UAP enthusiasts.

Whatever it is, you can be certain that all the major telescopes now have their sights on 3I/ATLAS. It’s also an exciting time as the new Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile has just become operational. Weigert says it’s expected to discover one to 10 of these objects every year.

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An artist’s illustration of the interstellar object ‘Oumuamua, which scientists now suspect is a comet, not an asteroid. (ESA/Hubble, NASA, ESO, M. Kornmesser)

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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The so-called moderate Republicans promised they would not slash Medicaid. Conservatives vowed not to explode the national debt. Party leaders insisted that they would not lump a jumble of unrelated policies into a single enormous piece of legislation and rush that bill through Congress before any reasonable person had time to read it.

But President Donald Trump wanted his “big, beautiful bill” enacted in time to sign it with a celebratory flourish on America’s birthday. And so nearly all GOP lawmakers in the House and Senate, setting aside these and many other pledges, principles, and policy demands, did what the president desired.

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Kent Nishimura / Bloomberg / Getty

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Hmmmm…This administration is placing the USA behind the rest of the world in science!

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We tend to think something is either alive or not–unless we’re discussing Schrödinger’s cat. For something to be considered alive, we often think of anything that can reproduce, produce its own energy, and have homeostasis – from humans, to animals, to plants, and even single-celled organisms. However, the challenge comes when trying to define a virus. They don’t grow, or reproduce on their own, nor can make their own energy. But when it infects a host, they can do some pretty population-altering things, as we saw with COVID-19. Now, researchers from Canada and Japan have found something virus-like, but more ‘alive’ (Picture: Getty Images)

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(Picture: Getty Images)

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