Mystery interstellar object could be the oldest known comet

Scientists can be a mysterious being among the stars that astronomers discovered last week the oldest guilty, according to scientists.

It is called 3i/atlas, it may be greater than three billion years of our solar power system.

This is only the third time that we discovered an object that came from outside our solar system.

The preliminary results were presented on Friday at the national meeting of the Royal Astronomical Association in the United Kingdom in Durham.

“We are all very excited by 3i/atlas,” the astronomer at Oxford Matthew Hopkins told BBC News.

“I just finished a doctorate degree, where I spent four years to discover [more] The bodies between the stars, then for the first time in my studies, we found one. ”

Based on the speed of the object, Mr. Hopkins says it may be more than seven billion years old, and the visitor may be among the most prominent stars so far.

3i/Atlas was first discovered on July 1, 2025 by the Atlas Survey Telescope in Chile, when it was about 670 million km of the sun.

It is currently only visible with very large telescopes, and it revolves around the distance of Jupiter from Earth.

Since then, astronomers all over the world have been racing to determine his way and discover more details on this topic.

Mr. Hopkins believes that he grew up in the “thick disk” in the Milky Way. This is a group of ancient stars that rotate above and below the area where the sun is located and most of the stars.

The team believes that since 3i/atlas has been formed around an old star, it consists of a lot of water ice.

This means that as the sun is later approaching this year, the energy from the sun will heat the surface of the object, which leads to the burning of steam and dust.

It can create a glowing tail.

The researchers presented their findings using the Moura Hopkins model.

“This is a part of the galaxy that we have never seen before,” said Professor Chris Littout, co -author of the study.

“We believe that there are two -thirds of the chance that this comet would be older than the solar system, and that it has been drifting through space between the stars since then.”

Mr. Hopkins explains that the creatures between the stars are formed around other stars, at the beginning of the lives of these stars, Mr. Hopkins explains.

He adds: “This call to the stars of parents means that we can look at the stars in the Milky Way.”

Later this year, 3i/Atlas should be visible from the ground using amateur telescopes.

Before 3i/Atlas rises in vision, only two others were seen. One of them was named 1i/’Oumuamua, located in 2017 and another called 2i/Borisov, discovered in 2019.

Astronomers worldwide are currently preparing to start using a very strong new telescope in Chile, called Vera C Rubin.

When it begins to wipe the southern night sky later this year, scientists expect to discover between five and 50 new creatures among the stars.