The object seems to be travelling on a steep path - suggesting it came from the Milky Way's "thick disk", an area of ancient stars that orbits above and below the thin plane where most stars reside.

The object is big – possibly as wide 12 miles, larger than the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs – and is speeding towards us at 130,000mph. 3I/Atlas was spotted on July 1 by the NASA-funded ATLAS survey telescope in Río Hurtado, Chile, when it was 420million miles away.

AN INTERSTELLAR space rock zooming through our solar system may be the oldest comet ever seen by humans, according to researchers. The mysterious cosmic object was discovered last week, and is

COLUMBUS, Ohio — In a cosmic first for this decade, astronomers have identified a mysterious comet from another galaxy — marking only the third time in history that an interstellar object has entered our solar system.

The interstellar comet 3I/Atlas is the fastest and largest of its kind, giving astronomers a rare glimpse into extrasolar origins.

The NASA-funded ATLAS (Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System) survey telescope in Rio Hurtado, Chile, first reported observations to the Minor Planet Center of comet 3I/ATLAS on July 1, 2025.