An interstellar object called 3I/ATLAS is passing through our solar system this year, NASA announced yesterday. Today at 6 p.m. ET, you can see it for yourself, thanks to a livestream from the Virtual Telescope Project.
3I/ATLAS is the third interstellar object ever detected within our solar system, following ‘Oumuamua in 2017 and 2I/Borisov in 2019. These objects moved quickly through our solar system, giving astronomers limited time to study them—just two weeks in ‘Oumuamua’s case.
However, scientists currently expect 3I/ATLAS to continue getting brighter and more visible until September 2025, giving astronomers and interested nonscientists more chances to see it themselves.
“This is a tremendous step forward and a tremendous opportunity,” Teddy Kareta, a postdoctoral researcher at Lowell Observatory in Arizona and press officer at the American Astronomical Society’s division for planetary science, tells Fast Company. ”And if the public is excited about it, the astronomers are twice as excited. It’s a really big deal.”
‘The building blocks of planets’
The object was discovered by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS). One of the observatories affiliated with this NASA-funded system, El Sauce Observatory in Chile, first spotted it in photos taken July 1.
So far, astronomers think it’s a comet, an icy body that appears to have a tail due to gas and dust trailing behind it. Comet movements are largely predictable, and NASA is confident the object is merely passing by us.
“The comet poses no threat to Earth and will remain at a distance of at least 1.6 astronomical units (about 150 million miles or 240 million kilometers),” NASA wrote in a statement about the object’s discovery.
Scientists study interstellar objects the same way they study the comets and asteroids that form closer to home, asking what the objects are made of and how they formed.
But for interstellar objects, the answers to these questions yield answers about what the universe is like outside our solar system, ultimately giving us a better idea of whether our solar system is rare in some way and if intelligent life on Earth is alone in the universe.
“These [interstellar objects] are the building blocks of planets from other planetary systems,” Kareta says. “That lets us ask really fundamental questions about why our solar system looks the way it does.”
How and when to see the object as it zips by
Beyond the philosophical questions this object lets us ask, this is also an opportunity to see something truly out of this world.
The Virtual Telescope Project’s livestream will show imagery from telescopes in Italy starting at 6 p.m. ET today (Thursday, July 3). You can watch from the VTP’s website or on YouTube.
And even if you miss the livestream, it won’t be your last chance to see the object. Scientists predict even amateur astronomers might be able to see the object with their telescopes as the object gets closer to the sun and becomes brighter.
“It might require you getting up early or staying up late,” Kareta says. “But you’re seeing light reflected off of something that formed around another star. What a wild experience.”
Because these objects are so rarely detected and such a recent area of study, astronomers from different disciplines—such as those who study exoplanets and those who study comets or asteroids—come together to study them.
“That’s where the best and most interesting science gets done and when you can push the envelope in a way that doesn’t just matter to me and my research group, but to tons of people across the world,” Kareta says.
