The fastest-moving objects are sometimes essentially the most difficult topics to {photograph} – which implies NASA scientists had a problem forward of them when the ATLAS comet warning system flagged the quickest photo voltaic system customer but. The Hubble Space Telescope has managed to seize the sharpest ever {photograph} of the comet generally known as 3I/ATLAS because it travels at 130,000 miles per hour / 209,215 kph.
The 3I/ATLAS, which was first noticed on July 1, has the quickest velocity of any photo voltaic system customer to this point, NASA says. The comet’s 130,000 mph pace is almost 100 occasions the speed of some bullets.
The comet’s speed suggests that 3I/ATLAS may have originated from a very distant, developing planetary system, which means the comet could be a space fossil with clues about the universe’s history.
The challenge, of course, was how to photograph something moving 100 times the speed of some bullets and still get a sharp enough photograph that scientists could infer some data from the image. NASA put the Hubble Space Telescope up to the task, using the orbiting telescope’s onboard WFC3 charge-coupled camera.
The researchers used a single gyroscope to allow the camera to follow the movement of the comet, creating a sharper, more detailed image. The stars in the background of the image are streaked because the camera was moving in order to follow the quick-moving comet, much like the panning technique blurs the background of photos taken following fast action on Earth.
The resulting photograph is giving researchers a wealth of different information about the speedy solar system visitor. Researchers now estimate that the comet’s nucleus is between 1,000 feet (320 m) and 3.5 miles (5.6 kilometers) in diameter.
The {photograph} additionally reveals the mud ejecting from the comet on the facet that the solar is heating up. The comet’s price of mud loss signifies the comet might have originated 300 million miles from the solar, researchers estimate.
“No one knows where the comet came from,” stated David Jewitt, the science workforce chief for the Hubble observations. “It’s like glimpsing a rifle bullet for a thousandth of a second. You can’t project that back with any accuracy to figure out where it started on its path.”
The 3I/ATLAS comet was first found by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) at the start of July 2025. While the comet isn’t Earth-bound, its pace signifies the comet might be billions of years outdated. Researchers will proceed to check the comet till it passes too near the solar to look at someday in September, although it is anticipated to be seen once more on the opposite facet of the solar round December.
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