Is it an alien spaceship or an ancient comet? That\u2019s the question puzzling UFO enthusiasts, NASA, and the European Space Agency since an interstellar visitor entered our solar system last month.<\/p>\n
It seems everyone has been talking about the unidentified object, and there\u2019s been a lot of speculation about its origin.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s only the third known interstellar visitor to pass through our solar system, after \u2018Oumuamua (2017) and 2I\/Borisov (2019), published reports say.<\/p>\n
The Hubble Telescope and its Wide Field Camera 3 shed some light on the object\u2019s composition when it caught a clear view of what experts say is likely a comet on July 21 when the object was 277 million miles or 445 million kilometers from Earth, CNN reported.<\/a><\/p>\n The image appears to be \u201ca teardrop-shaped dust cocoon\u201d that was spotted streaking from the comet\u2019s \u201cicy nucleus,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n A comet\u2019s nucleus is its solid core, often comprised of ice, dust and rocks. When comets travel close by stars, heat causes them to output gas and dust, the report explains.<\/p>\n According to published reports, here\u2019s what we know about 3I\/ATLAS:<\/p>\n It\u2019s likely a comet: NASA and the European Space Agency have classified 3I\/ATLAS as an \u201cinterstellar comet, based on its trajectory and composition.It\u2019s ancient: Estimates suggest it could be 7 to 11 billion years old, predating our solar system.The object is incredibly fast-moving: It was clocked traveling at 130,000\u2013152,000 mph — that\u2019s faster than any previously observed interstellar object.It\u2019s enormous: Experts have estimated its diameter is up to 12 miles. However, newer data suggests it\u2019s closer to 6 miles. But that\u2019s still much larger than its predecessors.<\/p>\n The object also has an unusual appearance: The Hubble images show the teardrop-shaped cocoon of dust, but some experts have said its lack of a visible tail makes it atypical for comets.<\/p>\n But the question that has stumped experts from around the world is: Where did 3I\/ATLAS come from?<\/p>\n According to published reports, one theory about 3I\/ATLAS\u2019s origin is that it\u2019s a thick disk of the Milky Way, a region above and below the galaxy\u2019s thin plane that is populated by older stars and an abundance of ancient material.<\/p>\n If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Is it an alien spaceship or an ancient comet? That\u2019s the question puzzling UFO enthusiasts, NASA, and the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71100,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[79,193],"class_list":["post-71099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71099\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}