Scientists have issued a breathtaking new update on the mysterious ‘interstellar object’ racing through the solar system.
This visitor from another solar system, named 3I/ATLAS, is currently rushing towards the sun at 137,000 miles per hour (221,000 km/h).
Now, scientists at the Gemini South Observatory in Chile have captured the clearest images of 3I/ATLAS yet.
And the images reveal one feature which could finally put an end to speculation about whether the object is an alien spacecraft.
The images, taken on August 27 when the object was about 240 million miles (380 million km) from Earth, are some of the first multi-coloured images of 3I/ATLAS.
They reveal a dense icy nucleus surrounded by a broad halo of gas and dust known as a coma.
Most importantly, they also reveal that the object has a long tail stretching behind 3I/ATLAS in the direction opposite to the sun.
This tail measures about one 120th of a degree in the sky, where one degree is about the width of your little finger on an outstretched arm.
Scientists have captured the clearest images yet of the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS as it races through our solar system at 137,000 miles per hour (221,000 km/h)
Scientists from the Gemini South Observatory in Chile captured these images of 3I/ATLAS while it was around 240 million miles (380 million km) from Earth, revealing its clear cometary tail stretching out away from the sun
Dr Mark Norris, an astronomer from the University of Lancashire who was not involved in the study, told The Daily Mail: ‘These new images very clearly demonstrate that 3I/ATLAS is a comet.’
In our own solar system, comets are balls of ice and dust that travel around the sun in very long elliptical orbits, with some only returning every few hundred years.
When comets approach the sun, the heat causes ice made of water or carbon dioxide to sublimate, meaning it turns directly from a solid into a gas.
This cloud of gas and dust that is ejected from the comet’s surface collects around the frozen core in the form of a coma and is swept out behind the comet to form a tail.
Since this cloud of particles is highly reflective, comets appear much brighter than rocky asteroids of similar sizes.
The closer the comet gets to the sun, and the more heat it is exposed to, the larger and brighter these features become.
Dr Norris says: ‘Early images showed evidence for cometary activity, but the activity was quite weak while it was far from the Sun.
‘As 3I/ATLAS approaches the Sun, it is being bathed in more and more sunlight, which increases the amount of material outgassing from the comet, which increases the coma and tail of the comet significantly.’
The new images show that the comet has become significantly more active since previous observations, such as this image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in July
These new images show that the tail is now significantly larger than it had been in earlier observations, such as those taken by the James Webb Space Telescope.
Additionally, by taking the images in colour, scientists were able to capture the wavelengths of light that the comet emits, known as its spectrum.
The spectrum tells scientists what kinds of chemicals can be found in the comet and in what proportions – telling us how it formed and how it changes as it passes through the solar system.
Interestingly, this analysis reveals that the ice and dust which make up 3I/ATLAS are broadly similar to those found in comets in our own solar system, with a few important differences.
Dr Matthew Genge, a planetary scientist from Imperial College London who was not involved in the study, told The Daily Mail: ‘3I/ATLAS has a CO2-rich atmosphere with less water than most home-grown comets.
‘This might indicate it formed far from its parent star. Ice forms in early planetary systems by raining out of gas as snow. Water ice forms closer to the star and CO2 ice further away.’
This gives scientists an intriguing insight into the processes of planetary formation taking place around distant stars.
Bryce Bolin, research scientist from Eureka Scientific who was part of the team behind the images, says: ‘Every interstellar comet is a messenger from another star system, and by studying their light and colour, we can begin to understand the diversity of worlds beyond our own.’
This is proof that the object is either a comet or a very rare type of icy asteroid, clearly demonstrating that it is a natural object and not some form of alien craft
There is only a short window in which 3I/ATLAS will be observable, so scientists are trying to gather as much data as they can to learn about these distant worlds.
Importantly, these observations also conclusively dismiss the theories that 3I/ATLAS is some sort of alien craft.
Previously, researchers such as Harvard physicist Professor Avi Loeb had suggested that 3I/ATLAS might be an artificial spacecraft of some kind.
Professor Loeb has publicly discussed the possibility that 3I/ATLAS could be a giant, nuclear-powered vessel.
This claim was largely based on the fact that 3I/ATLAS was supposedly too large and too bright to be produced by natural forces.
However, the evidence of a bright coma and a tail is a clear natural explanation for the object’s unexpected brightness and seemingly impossible size.
Dr Genge says that the Gemini South images clearly indicate that 3I/ATLAS is a natural object.
‘Little green men certainly aren’t responsible!’ he added.
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