NASA/ESA’s Hubble Telescope has captured stunning images of comet 3I/ATLAS, revealing its teardrop-shaped dust envelope surrounding an icy nucleus and distinctive dust tail. The observations were made when the object was 277 million miles (446 million km) from Earth, hurtling through space at approximately 130,000 mph (209,000 km/h).
Image provided by NASA and the European Space Agency shows interstellar comet 3I/Atlas on July 21, 2025, when it was 446 million kilometers (277 million miles) from Earth. (Photo: NASA/ESA via AP)”
Discovered on July 1 by a telescope in Chile, 3I/ATLAS poses no threat to Earth. New data suggests its icy nucleus measures no more than 3.5 miles (5.6 km) across—possibly as small as 1,000 feet (305 m). It holds the record as the fastest interstellar object ever observed in our solar system, likely having wandered through interstellar space for billions of years before chance brought it into our neighborhood.
Beyond Hubble, an armada of observatories—including James Webb, TESS, Swift, and Hawaii’s Keck—are now analyzing the comet’s chemical composition. Ground-based telescopes should track 3I/ATLAS through September before it vanishes behind the Sun, reemerging in early December.
Scientists emphasize that 3I/ATLAS offers a rare opportunity to study interstellar visitors. The upcoming Vera C. Rubin Observatory, capable of scanning the entire sky every three nights, could detect 5 to 50 such interstellar objects in the next decade, revolutionizing our understanding of these cosmic wanderers’ origins and diversity.