A stunning new telescope image has revealed the growing tail of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS. The luminous limb is starting to take shape as the icy interloper zooms ever closer to the sun on its one-way trip through the solar system.
3I/ATLAS is a roughly 7-mile-wide (11 kilometers) comet that was first spotted in early July and is zooming toward us from beyond the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars. Scientists quickly realized that the superfast object did not originate within our cosmic neighborhood. Instead, it was likely ejected from a distant star within the Milky Way and is now passing by us as it flies through the galaxy. It is unclear exactly where the comet originated, but initial findings hint that it is likely much older than the solar system.
