The newly identified interstellar object 3I/ATLAS (previously known as A11pl3Z) is expected to fly past the Sun before eventually leaving the Solar System. (Image credit: David Rankin/Catalina Sky Survey)
NASA scientists have confirmed that a mysterious object hurtling toward us through the solar system is “interstellar” — only the third of its kind ever spotted. They have also given the space alien an official name and provided new information about its origin and trajectory.
Reports of the extrasolar object, initially named A11pl3Z, emerged on Tuesday (July 1), when NASA and the International Astronomical Union (IAU) added it to their list of confirmed objects. It was first spotted in data collected from June 25 to 29 by the Asteroid Land Impact Warning System (ATLAS), which automatically scans the night sky using telescopes in Hawaii, Chile and South Africa. Several telescopes around the world later spotted the object in observational data dating back to June 14.
The object is moving towards the Sun at an incredible speed of about 152,000 mph (245,000 km/h), and observations show that it is moving in a very flat and straight trajectory, unlike anything else in the Solar System. This has led many experts to speculate that it originated outside the Sun's gravitational influence and has enough momentum to fly through our cosmic environment without slowing down.
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