Forget aliens lurking in the shadows of some distant planet; astronomers are transfixed by one that's just blazed into our solar system from the cosmic void. This comet is an object so profoundly rare that it is only the third interstellar object ever observed zipping through our celestial neighbourhood.
Its two confirmed predecessors were the mysterious 'Oumuamua in 2017 —which sparked intense debate due to its rocky, cigar-like shape and lack of a tail — and 2I/Borisov in 2019, which behaved much more like a typical comet in our own system, complete with a visible coma and tail.
