As the winter solstice approaches, Earth is preparing for a brush with a high-speed traveller from the furthest reaches of the cosmos. On Friday, 19 December, a gargantuan space object that has divided the world's most brilliant minds will reach its closest point to our planet, barrelling through the void at a staggering 130,000mph.
First detected on 1 July 2025 by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) telescope in Chile, the visitor has spent months being tracked by every major observatory on the globe. While most of humanity remains oblivious to the visitor passing 170 million miles away—roughly twice the distance of the sun—within the scientific community, the arrival of this celestial wanderer has sparked a debate that feels more like the plot of a science-fiction blockbuster than a standard astronomical update.
