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Everything We Know About Interstellar Object 3i/Atlas

July 2, NASA reveals the existence of the existence of 3i/Atlas, which is just the third interstellar object observed in the universe. These are objects that exist in interstellar space (a region between stars) and have no gravity on any star. The other two interstellar objects discovered so far are comets of 1i/`oumuamua and 2i/borisov.

The 3i/Atlas discovered the existence of 3i/Atlas on July 1, when a telescope from Rio Hurtado in Chile reported on the telescope operated by the asteroid’s ground shock alert system. This is commonly known as Atlas, a NASA-funded system developed and operated by the University of Hawaii to detect asteroids that may impact the Earth. It uses four telescopes (two in Hawaii, one in Chile and the other in South Africa) to automatically scan the entire sky several times a night to monitor celestial motion.

Illustration of 1i/`oumuamua, this is the first interstellar object discovered in October 2017. It is believed to be 400 meters long and cigar-shaped.

Illustrations: ESA/Hubble, NASA, ESO, M. Kornmesser

Comet Borisov

The image of 2i/borisov is the second interstellar object discovered in August 2019. It has a diameter of about 975 meters and moves at a speed of 177,000 km/h.

Photo: NASA/ESA/D. Jewish (UCLA)

Operated by California Institute of Technology, the finding was confirmed in the previous weeks by archived data collected by three other telescopes in Atlas and the Zwicky Sky facility at the Palomar Observatory. Many telescopes around the world then made additional observations on the 3i/Atlas, gradually revealing more details about it.

Images may contain outdoor night astronomy outer space and nebula contain nature

The observation results of the Chile Atlas telescope on 3i/ata.

Photo: Atlas/University of Hawaii/NASA

The 3i/Atlas is estimated to be about 20 kilometers at most. It is currently located about 670 million kilometers from the Sun and heads towards our stars at a speed of 61 kilometers per second. Its speed is expected to increase with the sun.

When astronomers studied its orbit, they found that the 3i/Atlas was moving too fast to be bound by the gravity of the sun, so they could travel straight through the solar system and into interstellar space, and could never be seen again.

3iatlas animation created using observations performed in Rio Ultado, Chile using Atlas Telescope.

The 3i/Attachment animation was created using observations made using the Atlas telescope in Rio Ultado, Chile.

Video: Atlas/University of Hawaii/NASA

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