Scientists suggest that an interstellar comet discovered earlier this month may be one of the oldest astronomers have ever encountered.
Researchers from the University of Oxford noted that comet 3I/ATLAS could be an order of 3 billion years older than our solar system, which is thought to be 4.5 billion years old.
The comet was first spotted by NASA's ATLAS (Asteroid Terrestrial Impact Warning System) in Chile on July 1, with preliminary observations dating back to June 14.
“Comet 3I/ATLAS was detected on July 1, but it is not a local object. It comes from outside our solar system and is only the third known interstellar comet. Astronomers will continue to study it until it fades away,” NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a post on its X platform, along with an image of the comet.
“This is an object from a part of the galaxy that we have never seen up close before,” Oxford University astrophysicist Chris Lintott told space.com.
“We think there's a two-thirds chance that this comet is older than the solar system and has been wandering in interstellar space ever since.”
It is the third known interstellar object outside the solar system, and is expected to appear again on the other side of our Sun in December, when it will be visible in amateur telescopes.
“All non-interstellar comets, like Halley's Comet, formed at the same time as our solar system, so they are up to 4.5 billion years old,” Oxford University astronomer Matthew Hopkins said in a talk at the annual meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society in Britain.
“However, interstellar visitors can be much older, and among those known to date, our statistical method suggests that 3I/ATLAS is most likely the oldest comet we have ever observed.”
Hopkins and other scientists estimate the comet is more than 7 billion years old. The astronomer told the conference that he believes the comet originated in a region of the Milky Way known as the “fat disk” of stars.
Comet 1I/'Oumuamua, first detected in 2017, and Comet 2I/Borisov, identified in 2019, are two other known interstellar objects discovered by scientists on Earth.
Sourse: www.upi.com
