Knock Knock, Earth… You’ve Got a Visitor from Another Star System!
Knock Knock, Earth… You’ve Got a Visitor from Another Star System!
For only the third time in history, astronomers have spotted an interstellar object zooming through our solar system. Meet 3I/ATLAS, a newly discovered space rock that could be up to 20 km wide – that’s roughly the size of a small city!
🪐 This cosmic traveler is racing towards the sun at a jaw-dropping 209,000 km per hour. There are even early signs it might be a comet, with a faint tail already observed.
Don’t worry, though – it poses no threat to Earth. Instead, it’s giving astronomers a rare chance to study a visitor from deep space, just like its famous predecessors, 'Oumuamua and Comet 2I/Borisov.
Photo 1: New interstellar object candidate A11pl3Z (NASA/JPL's name). EarthSky Community Photos/Filipp Romanov
Photo 2: The location of new interstellar object, 3I/Atlas, on July 2 at 10:45 pm CT. Eddie Irizarry/ Stellarium
Subscribe to @sputnik_africa
