Scientists discover mysterious interstellar object

A mystery interstellar object spotted last week by astronomers could be the oldest comet ever seen, the BBC writes.

Named 3I/Atlas, it may be three billion years older than our own solar system, suggests the team from Oxford university.

The preliminary findings were presented on Friday at the national meeting of the UK’s Royal Astronomical Society in Durham.

“We’re all very excited by 3I/Atlas,” University of Oxford astronomer Matthew Hopkins told BBC News. “I’ve just finished my PhD where I spent four years predicting the discovery of [more] interstellar objects, and then for the first time in my studies, we found one.”

Based on the object’s speed, Hopkins says it could be more than seven billion years old, and it may be the most remarkable interstellar visitor yet.

3I/Atlas was first spotted on July 1, 2025 by the Atlas survey telescope in Chile, when it was about 670 million km from the Sun.

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