earthling @appassionato@mastodon.social
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Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS is only the third object we've ever seen passing through our solar system from elsewhere in the galaxy. 3I/ATLAS doesn't pose a threat to Earth, and the closest it'll get to our home planet (on Dec. 19) is about 170 million miles—nearly twice the distance between Earth and the Sun.

This image of 3I/ATLAS was taken by our Hubble Space Telescope on Nov. 30, when the comet was about 178 million miles from Earth.



Image Description An image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope showing the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS. The comet is a small white dot in the center of the image, with a light blue halo of light that takes up most of the image. Other stars are shown streaking across the image as diagonal blue-white lines. Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI, D. Jewitt (UCLA), M.-T. Hui (Shanghai Astronomical Observatory). Image Processing: J. DePasquale (STScI)
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