Third-ever confirmed interstellar object blazing through Solar System

AFP |Washington

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Astronomers on Wednesday confirmed the discovery of an interstellar object racing through our Solar System -- only the third ever spotted, though scientists suspect many more may slip past unnoticed.

The visitor from the stars, designated 3I/Atlas, is likely the largest yet detected, and has been classified as a comet, or cosmic snowball.

“It looks kind of fuzzy,” Peter Veres, an astronomer with the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center, which was responsible for the official confirmation, told AFP.

“It seems that there is some gas around it, and I think one or two telescopes reported a very short tail.”

Originally known as A11pl3Z before it was confirmed to be of interstellar origin, the object poses no threat to Earth, said Richard Moissl, head of planetary defense at the European Space Agency.

“It will fly deep through the Solar System, passing just inside the orbit of Mars,” but will not hit our neighboring planet, he said.

Excited astronomers are still refining their calculations, but the object appears to be zooming more than 60 kilometres (37 miles) a second.

This would mean it is not bound by the Sun’s orbit, unlike objects that remain within the solar system.

Its trajectory also “means it’s not orbiting our star, but coming from interstellar space and flying off to there again,” Moissl said.

“We think that probably these little ice balls get formed associated with star systems,” added Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. “And then as another star passes by, tugs on the ice ball, frees it out. It goes rogue, wanders through the galaxy, and now this one is just passing us.”

A Chile based observatory that is part of the NASA-funded ATLAS survey first discovered the object on Tuesday