Astronomers in Hawaii have identified a new 'interstellar object' they are calling 3I/ATLAS. The comet passed earth on July 1. Karen Meech, who led the team that discovered 3I/ATLAS, says it could help scientists with information on other solar systems.

Hawaii

Astronomers in Hawaii have captured the first close-up image of 3I/ATLAS, a newly identified interstellar comet. The object was first detected near Jupiter and later confirmed to be passing through the solar system from interstellar space, making it only the third such object ever discovered.

Karen Meech, who led the discovery team, explained that 3I/ATLAS is relatively large, possibly up to 20 kilometers in diameter, and appears red, suggesting it is covered in organic materials. Scientists hope to study the comet's chemistry as it approaches the sun, which could provide insights into the processes of planet formation and the potential for life in other solar systems.

Astronomers capture image of new comet 3I/ATLAS

All right, let's turn now to a discovery not just out of this world, but out of the solar system. Astronomers are trying to gather information about a comet passing Earth, first discovered on July 1st near Jupiter, with scientists not knowing where it came from. Now, eventually, they figured out this object, now named 3i Atlas, was an interstellar visitor. Astronomers in Hawaii have captured the first close-up image, and let's talk about it with the leader of the team which captured that image. Karen Meech joins us now from Honolulu. Thank you very much for taking part in the program. What's the significance of an object like this entering our solar system? Well, these are really exciting. This is only the third one ever discovered. And what these are, they're leftovers from the process of building planets and stars in another solar system. And this is the only way we're ever going to get a close-up sample to study even briefly as it passes through our solar system. The important thing is we'd like to see if planet-building process is the same elsewhere, because that has implications for life elsewhere. So close-up is a relative term, because by most standards it's pretty far, maybe not by astronomical standards, and it's only been a short period of time since it was detected. Have we learned anything so far about this comet? Certainly. Of course, we're still in the mad scramble to get telescope time to take the observations and analyze them. But we know that it's relatively big compared to the other two. The other two were kilometer scale or so. This one could be as large as maybe 20 kilometers in diameter, but that's an upper limit. It's red, meaning it's probably covered in organic materials like comets are. We haven't seen any signature that it's spinning yet, but there's a lot of dust coming off of this. So what we're hoping for as it gets closer to the sun is to really understand the chemistry to see if it's different from other star systems. So you led the team that took the first detailed pictures of this comet. And so tell me what it was like when you first saw that photo. Well, of course, what we first see from the telescope doesn't look as beautiful as the press release. We see this is a composite of many images. But when the first images come in and you start to see that there's a tail, there's dust coming off of it, that's really exciting because it looks like many of the comets we see in our solar system. The press release that came out shows the true color image and it's just a really beautiful image. And it really gives you an emotional connection to the science, which is fun. And how did you know that it was interstellar? Well, we know based on the orbit. And so you have to get a number of images over several nights, depending on how fast it's moving. And you make very precise measurements of its position and speed. And once you have enough points, you can describe the shape of the orbit. If it was circular, it's clearly in our solar system. This was coming through almost straight through. And from that, you can tell that it had to come from elsewhere. What do you think or hope we're going to learn about this or from this comet? I am hoping that we will get a detailed look at the chemistry. All the chemicals are made in the Big Bang and in the cold recesses of space. But how much of these building blocks get incorporated into a new solar system? We don't yet know what the differences are. And that may be important for thinking about the possibility of life elsewhere. So I'm going to be most excited about learning about the chemistry. It's still approaching the sun. So it's a little bit too faint to do that experiment. But as we get closer to September and then after it goes behind the sun and we can start to see it again in November, December, I'm really excited about what we'll start to see chemically from this object. It's exciting to hear your description of all of this. Thank you very much for joining us. You're welcome. Karen Meach is an astronomer whose team captured the first close-up image of 3i Atlas.

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