Astronomers recently confirmed that a mysterious object, dubbed 3I/ATLAS, came from interstellar space and is now blowing through the solar system at extremely high speeds.
It's only the third confirmed interstellar object to have reached our star system, following 'Oumuamua, which was spotted in 2018, and a comet dubbed 2I/Borisov, which was identified in tk.
Now, scientists are racing to better understand 3I/ATLAS and whether it can shed more light on the nature of interstellar objects like it.
In an op-ed for Space.com, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor astrophysicist Aster Taylor and Michigan State University professor of physics and astronomy Darryl Seligman argue that 3I/Atlas appears to be a comet, much like 3I/Borisov, suggesting "comet-like interstellar objects are far more common than exotic ones like 'Oumuamua."
Thanks to its tremendous speed of around 134,000 mph relative to the Sun, the two researchers assert that "ATLAS is far older than either 'Oumuamua or Borisov — around 3-11 billion years old."
That's because "the influence of the galaxy tends to speed up objects over time," they wrote.
In other words, 3I/ATLAS may indicate that the Milky Way has been producing interstellar objects since close to its creation, some 13 billion years ago. In fact, it could easily be older than our own Sun, which is around 4.6 billion years in age.
"We can even begin to determine the distribution of these objects and infer the population of the still-unseen planets that must have ejected them into interstellar space," the op-ed reads.
Scientists traced back its trajectory to the center of the Milky Way. But how it got here remains a mystery. Experts have suggested it may have formed as a comet around a star, or it was ejected by a passing star from its home system.
We don't even know with any degree of certainty how big it is. 2I/Borisov's comet tail measured almost 100,000 miles, according to estimates, while 'Oumumua itself was only between 330 to 3,300 feet long.
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