Hubble captures sharpest image yet of interstellar visitor passing through our Solar System

skyatnightmagazine ^ | 08 07 2025 | Iain Todd

[yesthatjallen]

The Hubble Space Telescope has captured the sharpest image yet of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, which is currently passing through our Solar System.

Observations by Hubble have enabled astronomers to better estimate the size of the comet's nucleus, which is made of dust and ice.

Hubble managed to capture a dust plume being ejected by the comet, as well as a glimpse of a dust tail streaming away from its nucleus.

SNIP

[Governor Dinwiddie]

They can't fool me. It's an alien space ship.

[Larry Lucido]

Slap it with a 100% tariff!

[SaveFerris]

It says NCC-1701

or

V-GER

[ClearCase_guy]

I, for one, welcome our new overlords.

[Lazamataz]

They can't fool me. It's an alien space ship.

You are just too clever!

[Robert DeLong]

Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS as seen by the Gemini North Telescope. Credit: International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/K. Meech (IfA/U. Hawaii). Image Processing: Jen Miller & Mahdi Zamani (NSF NOIRLab)

[Ken522]

If the tariffs don’t work, subsidize it!

[lgjhn23]

“...If the tariffs don’t work, subsidize it!...”

IF our domestic communist regime can’t tax it, they’ll just ban it. LOL

[HartleyMBaldwin]

There appeared to be the unclad hindquarters of an alien protruding from a window.

[ElkGroveDan]

Yet while the vast majority of comets that we know of originated on the outer edges of our Solar System, this interstellar visitor likely originated in some other Solar System, far beyond our Galaxy.

Do news outlets not have proofreaders any more? Beyond our GALAXY??? I don't think so.

[GOPJ]

About three and a half miles wide...

[Telepathic Intruder]

All aboard!

[Wasichu]

It is the Cephians! They lied!

[Lazamataz]

Those Squids! Tricky little critters!

[cgbg]

“Beyond our GALAXY???”

It sounds like you are one of those science deniers, citizen.

Lol.

[laplata]

That’s huge.

[TigersEye]

Galaxy? Solar system? What’s the real difference anyway?
It’s just semantics! :)

[jonrick46]

[Ezekiel]

They can't fool me. It's an alien space ship.

It just keeps getting worse:

"Please don't play A11.." ~ Buck Owens

3I/ATLAS, also known as C/2025 N1 (ATLAS) and previously as A11pl3Z...

>>>

On 16 July 2025, astrophysicist Avi Loeb of Harvard University and other researchers of the Initiative for Interstellar Studies published a paper on arXiv speculating that 3I/ATLAS could be an extraterrestrial spacecraft because they believed the object had "anomalous" characteristics,[62] such as having an apparently large size,[12] lack of identifiable chemicals, and a trajectory aligned with the Solar System's ecliptic plane.[63] Other astronomers, including Chris Lintott of University of Oxford, immediately criticized Loeb's speculation; the science news website Live Science reported that "the overwhelming consensus is that it is a comet," with many researchers "disappointed with the new paper and pointed out that it distracts from the work of other scientists."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3I/ATLAS#Alien_spacecraft_controversy