Posted on 07/03/2025 5:26:55 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
For only the 3rd time in history, astronomers have found an interstellar object hurtling through our solar system...
The Minor Planet Center (MPC) confirmed its new designation on July 2, 2025, as 3I/ATLAS, or C/2025 N1. The MPC also said:
There are tentative reports of cometary activity … with a marginal coma and a short 3-arcsecond tail....
We are currently being visited by what appears to be a comet from another solar system...
We only know of two other interstellar objects that have entered into our solar system before, 'Oumuamua and Comet 2I/Borisov. The nature of 'Oumuamua is still a matter of debate, and the second was a comet from another solar system. And now we have a third interstellar visitor. First named A11pl3Z, the object is now designated as 3I/ATLAS, or C/2025 N1. The object's trajectory indicates it didn't originate inside our own solar system...
The dim space rock is currently at about magnitude 18.8. Our new visitor will get its closest to the sun – at about 2 astronomical units (AU), or twice as far as Earth is from the sun – in October. As it reaches perihelion – its closest point to the sun – it should be moving at about 68 km/s relative to the sun, or at about 152,000 miles per hour.
Marshall Eubanks, a physicist and VLBI radio astronomer and co-founder of Space Initiatives, said on the Minor Planet Mailing List that the object could be as large as 12 miles (20 km) in diameter. It will also come within about 0.4 AU of Mars in October, which would make it just barely observable by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. With the current orbital data, Eubanks said:
This object appears to be coming from the thin galactic disk.
(Excerpt) Read more at earthsky.org ...
VGER requires the information.
12 miles long? The USS Enterprise? Get ready to be visited. They were waiting for a leader in the White House, they heard Biden and Harris talk and they thought no intelligent life, but when President Trump got elected, they knew we had intelligent life. 😀
So long as it comes in legally...
I am reading Footfall right now!
Purple is my 2nd favorite. I been jamming for a week or so.
And with that.
Sanford Townsend Band - Smoke From a Distant Fire
https://youtu.be/wCWVuCCWqzQ?si=7YjJ2iLXV5ntQXEc
“...Across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the
beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with
envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us....”
"...we now return you to our program of dance music..."
😊 If it is ET, they're probably just swinging through to make sure our Flag is still there. It is.
Related detailed data. It is currently estimated to reach magnitude 10 at closest approach. This comet will be extensively studied and photographed by amateurs like me. 😊
https://theskylive.com/c2025n1-info
Cool!
The object is reported as being “fuzzy” by astronomers ... because its a large object [ 20 mile diameter ], or if it is out-gassing [ but it is too far from the Sun for that to occur ], or if it is so bright because it is made of some unknown materiel that is highly reflective.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAZky1kGNF8
Correction
not 20 miles, but 20km
The only difference between asteroids and comets is, the comets have frozen water and various gases that boil off during trips near stars.
Nope.
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