This Cosmic Nomad May be Older Than Our Solar System
- Editor OGN Daily
- Jul 25
- 2 min read
A surprising interstellar nomad has been spotted by Chile’s ATLAS survey telescope.
Much to the surprise of astronomers, the observatory captured a glimmer of something extraordinary: A cosmic visitor that could be older than our solar system - which they have named 3I/ATLAS. Most comets, such as Halley's, loop through our solar system like time capsules that formed alongside our Sun and planets around 4.5 billion years ago. But every now and then, something far stranger streaks across the sky.
Long before our solar system took shape, before Earth had oceans, trees, or trilobites, 3I/ATLAS was already drifting through the distant cosmos. And now, billions of years later, it has finally arrived in our cosmic neighbourhood. This glimmering interstellar voyager, rich in water ice, is only the third such object ever detected. 3I isn’t just a visitor from outside our solar system; it hails from a completely different quadrant of the Milky Way.
"This is an object from a part of the galaxy we've never seen up close before," explained Chris Lintott, co-author of the study announcing the discovery. "We think there's a two-thirds chance this comet is older than the solar system, and that it's been drifting through interstellar space ever since."
"We're in an exciting time: 3I is already showing signs of activity," said co-author Michele Bannister, of the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. "The gases that may be seen in the future as 3I is heated by the Sun will test our model. Some of the biggest telescopes in the world are already observing this new interstellar object – one of them may be able to find out!"
And for the rest of us Earthbound stargazers? 3I/ATLAS is expected to grace our skies in late 2025 and early 2026, visible with a decent amateur telescope, providing a front-row seat to a relic older than our Sun.
Early conjecture suggests cosmic time-traveler may be bigger and brighter than the two interstellar guests before it: 'Oumuamua (2017) and Borisov (2019).
Image Credit: International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/K. Meech (IfA/U. Hawaii)
Image Processing: Jen Miller & Mahdi Zamani (NSF NOIRLab)
