Look, Hubble captures the interstellar comet 3i/atlas that visits us

It is really the big star of this early summer in the astronomical world. Similarly, Since its discovery on July 1. Meanwhile, the 3i/Atlas comet has been scrutinized by all professional observatories, both on our floor of cows and outside the earthly atmosphere. Nevertheless, Hubble. Consequently, the legendary space telescope launched in 1990 by the look, hubble captures interstellar comet Discovery US shuttle, has just photographed this precious – because it is extremely rare – visitor arriving from another solar system.

Sorry for aficionados, the brightness of this comet is still too weak so that we can observe it with small amateur telescopes. Nevertheless, On the Bluesky social network, the Astrafoxen account has nevertheless shared a video mounted from Hubble photos.

The astrophysicist specifies on its post that the visible look, hubble captures interstellar comet features on the animated clichés of the space telescope are cosmic rays. subsidomic particles with extremely high energy which swarm in the cosmos, of which our terrestrial magnetic field preserves us.

What the analysis of the Specter of the comet 31/Atlas revealed – Look, hubble captures interstellar comet

We already know two or three things about this object. Thus. a spectroscopic study of the comet’s hair, published on July 20, highlighted the presence of look, hubble captures interstellar comet water ice in abundance and a composition recalling rather the asteroids of type D, that is to say very dark, rich in silicates and carbon, very different from the usual transneptunian objects such as Pluto.

When the lucky vera-c rubin observatory comes across a comet

It is at the Vera-C.-Rubin observatory. telescope based in look, hubble captures interstellar comet Chile and normally devolved to the study of dark matter, that we owe the first “view” of 3i/Atlas. Capable of discovering many stars of the Milky Way and. moreover, thanks to its highlights of the sky in the sky, it is not its primary objective. And indeed, between June 21 and July 7, the telescope imbued by chance a still mysterious object. We now know that this is the third interstellar visitor ever discovered in our neighborhood. hence its name 3i/Atlas name (for Asteroid Terresrial-Impact Last Alert System, or ultimate asteroid impact alert system).

An increasingly precisely known trajectory (no, no collision with the earth)

3i/Atlas does not strictly present any danger to the earth. but its nature as an interstellar comet, added to the possibility that it is 7 billion years as we revealed here, in fact a target of first choice for scientific studies. As for Hubble, he ensured an excellent work of paparazzi.

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