A team of astronomers has made an exciting discovery about the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS. This comet was spotted barreling through our Solar System at nearly double the speed of previous visitors like ‘Oumuamua and Comet Borisov. Measuring about 5.6 kilometers (3.5 miles) across and weighing over 33 billion tons, it’s a massive object worth exploring.
In a recent study, researchers from the University of A Coruña explored where this comet might have come from. They used data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia mission. This project maps stars in our galaxy and beyond, and the team simulated 3I/ATLAS’s journey back through time—over 10 million years to be precise. Their goal was to find past close encounters with other stars.
The researchers identified 93 encounters where 3I/ATLAS came within 2 parsecs (about 6.5 light-years) of another star. However, none of these encounters had a significant impact on the comet’s path. As stated in their findings, the closest star altered 3I/ATLAS’s speed only slightly, indicating that the object has been traveling largely undisturbed.
Interestingly, they concluded that 3I/ATLAS likely originated from the galaxy’s thin disk, which contrasts with earlier theories suggesting it came from the thick disk. This new insight implies that 3I/ATLAS could be an ancient object, potentially over 10 billion years old. Its long journey through space might have begun in a primordial planetesimal disk or an exo-Oort cloud.
Pérez Couto, the team leader and researcher at the Centre for Research in Information and Communication Technologies, emphasized the importance of this study. “What makes 3I/ATLAS unique is that it allows us to study the evolution of objects from other stellar systems,” he said. Each observation offers a glimpse into the universe’s past.
The study is available on the preprint server arXiv, and it signals the need for further research to better understand such interstellar objects. They serve as cosmic time capsules, offering clues about the formation of early planetary systems.
This discovery showcases the wonders of modern astronomy, revealing how even fleeting visitors can deepen our understanding of the universe’s history.
