3I/ATLAS: Interstellar comet is probably much older than the solar system
A week and a half after its discovery, there are clues about the origin and age of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS – and predictions about its composition.
A sequence of recordings from 3I/ATLAS
(Image: ESO/O. Hainaut)
The interstellar celestial body 3I/ATLAS probably comes from the fringes of the Milky Way – the so-called thick disk – and is probably much older than the Earth, the Sun and the entire solar system. This has been determined by a European research team on the basis of the data available to date and explained their approach in a previously published specialist article. The high speed of the comet in particular suggests fundamental differences to the two predecessors observed to date. This also suggests that there may be more water on 3I/ATLAS, which could soon be confirmed by observations.
About twice as old as the solar system
As the research group led by astrophysicist Matthew Hopkins from the University of Oxford explains in the article, 3I/ATLAS is within the expected range in terms of its previously known properties. Its high speed indicates that it originates from the fringes of the Milky Way, the so-called thick disk enclosing the thin disk that contains the main mass of our home galaxy. The interstellar comet is therefore likely to be older than 7.6 billion years, whereas our solar system was formed around 4.5 billion years ago. It is not possible to say exactly where it comes from, but it is clear that it has a different origin to the previously known objects 1I/ʻOumuamua and 2I/Borisov.
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(Image:Â ESO/O. Hainaut)
In the middle of the week, the European Southern Observatory also published images of 3I/ATLAS showing the celestial body in fast motion. This shows how the comet moves in front of the stars. The research facility has also superimposed the observation data collected with the Very Large Telescope (VLT) and created the deepest and best image of this "strange object" to date. This should soon be followed by better images, as the celestial body is still moving in our direction and will be observable for several months before it gets too close to the sun.
3I/ATLAS was only discovered last week from Chile with the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS). Subsequently, however, the object was also detected on older images dating back to June 14. Thanks to these "precoveries", it was possible to determine its orbit and confirm that it is only passing through. It will approach the Earth to about 1.6 astronomical units (AU), i.e. it will always be further away from us than the Sun. It is a comet several kilometers in size and its tail is more than 25,000 kilometers long.
(mho)
