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.
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.
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.
