🌌 Ever wondered what happens when a comet from another star zooms through our solar neighborhood? The Hubble Space Telescope just dropped its sharpest snaps of 3I-Atlas, a high-speed visitor from interstellar space! ☄️🔭
Discovered last month by a telescope in Chile, 3I-Atlas is only the third known interstellar object to swing by Earth, and it poses zero threat. Think of it as a cosmic traveler making a safe pit stop before heading back into the galaxy.
Early estimates said its icy core could be tens of kilometers wide, but Hubble's eagle-eyed shots have tightened that to between about 320 meters and 5.6 kilometers. Even with Hubble's magic, the solid heart of the comet is still too small to spot directly.
This speedy visitor is blazing in at a whopping 209,000 kilometers per hour and will cruise closer to Mars than Earth, staying at a comfortable distance from both planets. When Hubble caught it a few weeks ago, it was about 446 million kilometers away—talk about cosmic road trip vibes! 🚗✨
But the real showstopper is the teardrop-shaped dust plume around its core and the faint dusty tail trailing behind. These crisp images are lighting up space communities faster than your fav K-pop MV drop. Stay tuned, space fam! 🚀✨
Reference(s):
Hubble telescope takes sharpest-ever image of an interstellar object
cgtn.com
