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The Hubble Space Telescope has captured the best picture yet of a high-speed comet visiting our solar system from another star.
NASA and the European Space Agency released the latest photos Thursday.
Discovered last month by a telescope in Chile, the comet is only the third known interstellar object to pass our way and poses no threat to Earth.
Astronomers originally estimated the size of its icy core at several miles across, but Hubble's observations have narrowed it down to no more than 3.5 miles. It could even be as small as 1,000 feet, scientists say, according to a published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
The comet is hurtling our way at 130,000 mph, but will veer closer to Mars than Earth, keeping a safe distance from both. It was 277 million miles away when photographed by Hubble a couple weeks ago. The orbiting telescope revealed a teardrop-shaped plume of dust around the nucleus as well as traces of a dusty tail.
NASA previously said the comet will make its closest approach to the sun in late October, scooting between the orbits of Mars and Earth. The agency said 3I/ATLAS should remain visible to telescopes through September, but then it will pass too close to the sun to observe. It is expected to reappear on the other side of the sun by early December, allowing for renewed observations.
According to in Chile, the object is named "3I" because it is the third such interstellar object to be found, following in 2017 and in 2019.
"All three appear to be quite dark and red, reflecting only about 5% of the sunlight that hits them, which is similar in reflectivity to asphalt," the observatory said last month. "Unlike 1I/'Oumuamu, 3I does not change much in brightness as it rotates, indicating that it is more likely to be spherical."
Los Cumbres Observatory created an animation of image data from its telescope as it tracked the new interstellar on July 4, 2025:
As scientists watch the object, some are raising questions. Harvard professor Avi Loeb, who is the director of the institute for theory and computation at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, says it could actually be alien technology. He said many of its characteristics are not typical, and that its trajectory is "fine-tuned."
"The object looks strange. It reflects a lot of sunlight," he told "CBS Mornings Plus." "Moreover, this object has some glow in front of it, not behind it. There is no tail, as usually is the case for comets."
He advises the best way to proceed is to collect as much scientific data as possible.
"Not assuming anything, just monitoring it and deciding whether it maneuvers, whether it has some artificial lights, whether it looks like a technological object, and if it ends up being a comet, so be it," he said.
