Comet 3I/ATLAS’ upcoming encounter with the solar might change it in large methods — Space photograph of the week

Even as a superb, naked-eye comet slices by Earth’s sky (cheers, Comet Lemmon!), essentially the most well-known object within the photo voltaic system proper now’s hidden on the far aspect of the solar: the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS.

This alien customer, which most astronomers imagine to be a comet originating from an unknown star system far past our personal, is barely the third interstellar object ever detected in our photo voltaic system. It is the biggest, fastest-moving, and fairly probably the oldest interstellar object ever seen.

Though it was simply confirmed by NASA in early July, the freewheeling ball of ice and dirt is already nearing the midway level on its tour of our photo voltaic system. This Wednesday (Oct. 29), 3I/ATLAS will attain perihelion — its closest level to the solar — earlier than starting its months-long departure from our cosmic neighborhood.

We’ll miss our interstellar pal, however no less than we’ll all the time have the images. The picture above, captured Aug. 27 by the National Science Foundation-operated Gemini South telescope in Chile, would be the clearest picture we’ve got to this point. As 3I/ATLAS zooms nearer to the solar, radiation from our star heats the ice on the comet’s physique (its nucleus), inflicting geysers of fuel and dirt to shoot outward and type a glowing plume (a coma) round it. Radiation stress from our star’s unrelenting photo voltaic wind pushes this materials into a protracted, distinguished tail angled away from the solar.

As 3I/ATLAS reaches perihelion this week — coming within 1.4 astronomical units, or 130 million miles (210 million kilometers) of the sun, according to NASA — it might begin releasing fuel in overdrive. When the comet turns into seen to telescopes once more in early November, it might look each larger and brighter than the way it appeared two months in the past. Instruments on the bottom, in orbit and even on their way to Jupiter will snap to consideration, making 3I/ATLAS an excellent larger area celeb because it zooms away from our photo voltaic system without end.

Studying the interstellar comet with the complete vary of humankind’s astronomical devices might yield untold secrets and techniques concerning the outer reaches of our galaxy and its mysterious historical past. Until then, all we are able to do is wait, really feel the nice and cozy daylight on our faces, and know {that a} trove of cosmic info lurks simply on the opposite aspect of our star.

For extra elegant area pictures, take a look at our Space Photo of the Week archives.