The Virtual Telescope Project will share a livestream<\/a> of the comet at 4:00 a.m. UTC on Friday, or 11 p.m. ET Thursday. In the event of cloudy weather, the webcast will be delayed 24 hours, said Gianluca Masi, astronomer and astrophysicist at the Bellatrix Astronomical Observatory in Italy and founder and scientific director of the Virtual Telescope Project.<\/p>\n The comet is expected to remain visible to telescopes and space missions for a few more months before exiting our solar system, according to NASA<\/a>.<\/p>\n Astronomers have closely tracked the comet since its initial discovery over the summer in the hopes of uncovering details about its origin outside of our solar system as well as its composition. Multiple missions have observed the object in optical, infrared and radio wavelengths of light \u2014 and recently, scientists captured their first glimpses in X-rays to and discovered new details.<\/p>\n X-raying an interstellar visitor<\/p>\n Comets that originate in our solar system emit X-rays, but astronomers have long wondered whether interstellar comets behave the same.<\/p>\n Although previous attempts to find out were made as two other interstellar comets passed through our solar system in 2017 and 2019, no X-rays were detected.<\/p>\n But that all changed with 3I\/ATLAS.<\/p>\n Japan\u2019s X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission, or XRISM, observed 3I\/ATLAS for 17 hours in late November with its Xtend telescope. The instrument captured X-rays fanning out to a distance of 248,000 miles (400,000 kilometers) from the comet\u2019s solid core, or nucleus, which could be a result of clouds of gas around the object, according to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency<\/a>. But more observations are needed to confirm the finding.<\/p>\n XRISM captured an image of comet 3I\/ATLAS in X-ray light. – JAXA\/ESA<\/p>\n X-rays can originate from interactions between gases given off by the comet \u2014 such as water vapor, carbon monoxide or carbon dioxide \u2014 and the continuous stream of charged particles releasing from the sun called solar wind. Comets, which are a combination of ice, rock, dust and gas, heat up as they approach stars like the sun, causing them to sublimate materials. XRISM detected signatures of carbon, oxygen and nitrogen near the comet\u2019s nucleus.<\/p>\n The European Space Agency\u2019s X-ray space observatory XMM-Newton also observed the interstellar comet on December 3 for about 20 hours using its most sensitive camera. A dramatic image released by the agency shows the red X-ray glow of the comet.<\/p>\n The X-ray observations, combined with others across various wavelengths of light, could reveal what the comet is made of \u2014 and just how similar or different the object is from those in our own solar system.<\/p>\n![\"XRISM](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/b7089693393ff2839f5089ff0355a499.jpeg\"\/)
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