{"id":311313,"date":"2025-11-27T03:17:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T03:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/311313\/"},"modified":"2025-11-27T03:17:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T03:17:08","slug":"comet-31-atlas-and-esa-new-observations-reveal-interstellar-visitors-precise-trajectory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/311313\/","title":{"rendered":"Comet 31\/ATLAS and ESA: New Observations Reveal Interstellar Visitor\u2019s Precise Trajectory"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Comet 31\/ATLAS has become one of the most closely watched interstellar objects in history\u2014and the ESA (European Space Agency) is now playing a pivotal role in tracking its path.<\/p>\n

In the first week of October, ESA\u2019s ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter delivered an extraordinary leap in trajectory accuracy, offering scientists a rare opportunity to study a cosmic traveler that will never return.<\/p>\n

ESA Tracking Comet 31\/ATLAS<\/p>\n

Astronomers first spotted the faint object on July 1, 2025, designating it 3I\/ATLAS, the third confirmed interstellar visitor ever detected in our Solar System. As ESA explains in its update, the comet is \u201con a one-way journey\u2026 swinging around the Sun once, then heading back out into deep space.\u201d
\ud83d\udd17 Learn more from the European Space Agency: ESA Official Site<\/a><\/p>\n

Interstellar objects like Comet 31\/ATLAS move with extreme velocity\u2014up to 155,000 mph (250,000 km\/h). At that speed, the comet could travel from Earth to the Moon in only a few hours, meaning astronomers must be precise in their tracking to capture meaningful data.<\/p>\n

ESAs ExoMars Orbiter Changes the Game
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

Until October, scientists relied solely on Earth-based telescopes to monitor the comet\u2019s direction, brightness, and speed. However, that changed dramatically between October 1 and 7, when ESA aimed the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, which is usually used to study the Martian atmosphere, toward the fast-moving object.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Comet 31\/ATLAS has become one of the most closely watched interstellar objects in history\u2014and the ESA (European Space…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":311314,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[64,63,128,285],"class_list":{"0":"post-311313","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-space"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311313\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}