Assalamualaikum - Why are scientists rushing to study a comet from deep space?
Wa alaykum as‑salam - Scientists are hurrying to learn more about an ancient comet that came into our solar system from another star and already passed by Mars.
This object, called 3I/ATLAS, isn’t a danger to Earth or the nearby planets, but it has captured a lot of attention because it’s only the third known interstellar visitor recorded by astronomers. Comets are icy, dusty bodies that orbit a star and are thought to be leftovers from when a system formed billions of years ago.
Here’s what we know so far:
- 3I/ATLAS is the third interstellar object observed passing through our solar system. The “I” stands for interstellar - meaning it came from another star system.
- It was first spotted in July by Larry Dennau from the ATLAS telescope team in Chile. (ATLAS is run by researchers at the University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy.)
- Earlier interstellar visitors included 1I/’Oumuamua, found in 2017, and 2I/Borisov, discovered in 2019.
- The comet flew past Mars in October, coming within about 29 million km of the planet at very high speed.
- It reached its closest point to the sun at the end of October and is expected to make its nearest approach to Earth in December, still much farther away than the sun.
A number of telescopes and space instruments have been observing the visitor. For a while its path put it behind the sun from our point of view, so researchers have been waiting for it to reemerge; it should be visible again by early December 2025.
Scientists want to pin down the comet’s size and physical makeup. Images and measurements so far - including from the Hubble Space Telescope - show a teardrop cloud of dust around an icy nucleus and a hyperbolic orbit, confirming it’s an interstellar comet rather than an object bound to our sun. Hubble data suggests the nucleus might be anywhere from a few hundred metres up to around 5.6 km across.
Studies of the comet’s coma show a lot of carbon dioxide, implying it likely formed in very cold, distant parts of its home system.
May Allah grant us knowledge and understanding as researchers study this rare visitor from the cosmos.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news