July 2 NASA revealed the existence of 3i/Atlas, only the third interstellar object observed in the universe. These are objects that exist in interstellar space – areas between stars – and which are not related to any star. The other two interstate facilities discovered so far are comet 1i/ʻoumuamua and 2i/Borisov.
3i/Atlas was discovered on July 1, when its existence was reported by a telescope in Rio Hurtado in Chile, served by Asteroid of ground warning system. Commonly known as an Atlas, it is a system financed by NASA developed and supported by the University of Hawaii to detect asteroids, which can potentially hit the ground. He uses four telescopes – two in Hawaii, one in Chile and one in South Africa – for automatic scanning of the whole sky several times each night to monitor blue movements.
The archived data collected in previous weeks by three other ATLAS telescopes, as well as by Zwicky Sky Facility at Palomar Observatory, served by the California Institute of Technology, confirmed the discovery. Additional 3I/Atlas observations were then made by numerous telescopes around the world, gradually revealing more details on this topic.
It is estimated that 3i/Atlas is at most about 20 kilometers. Currently, there is about 670 million kilometers from the sun and is approaching our star from the shooter direction at a speed of about 61 km per second. His speed is expected to raise when he approaches the sun.
When the astronomers studied their orbit, they discovered that 3i/Atlas moved too quickly to be bound by the burden of the sun, so they would go straight through the Solar System and to interstellar space, never again.
