Astronomers are tracking 3I\/ATLAS, only the third known interstellar object to pass through our solar system. It\u2019s likely a comet; the closest it will get to Earth is about 170 million miles, and it should come within ~130 million miles of the Sun on October 30 before fading from view until around December.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As it approaches the Sun, 3I\/ATLAS is getting more active. On August 27, Gemini South images showed a much longer tail, consistent with ice and dust heating up and venting\u2014behavior similar to comets formed within our own system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb, who has floated (but not insisted on) an alien\u2013technology angle for such objects, now notes a strange \u201canti-tail\u201d pointing toward the Sun rather than away from it. He argues this isn\u2019t a perspective effect and says such a feature hasn\u2019t been reported for solar-system comets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While most observations fit a natural comet, the unusual anti-tail\u2014and differences from prior interstellar visitors\u2014make 3I\/ATLAS a rare and intriguing target as scientists race to study it before it slips back into the dark.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Astronomers are tracking 3I\/ATLAS, only the third known interstellar object to pass through our solar system. It\u2019s likely a comet; the closest it will get to Earth… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6534,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"views":134,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6533"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6533\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6535,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6533\/revisions\/6535"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}