While that may sound distant, astronomers emphasize that this is as close as humanity will ever get to this object.
“After billions of years of galactic solitude and just moments in the warmth of our sun, interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS makes its closest approach to Earth on Friday,” said Dr. Gary Blackwood, PhD, a retired NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory astronomer. “On a hyperbolic orbit originating from the center of the Milky Way, this rare visitor will depart our solar system never to be seen again.”
Earlier in its journey, 3I/ATLAS reached perihelion—its closest point to the sun—on Oct. 29, passing within about 126 million miles (203 million kilometers) of our star.
31/ATLAS Alien Spacecraft?
Speculation surrounding 3I/ATLAS intensified after Harvard astrophysicist Dr. Avi Loeb suggested the object could be artificial in origin. However, follow-up observations strongly support a natural explanation.
Data from NASA’s Psyche mission and the European Space Agency’s Mars Trace Gas Orbiter show that the object is accelerating due to outgassing—jets of vaporized gas escaping from its surface as it warms, a hallmark of cometary behavior.
