Largest & Oldest Interstellar Comet Ever Seen Nears Sun – 3I/ATLAS Blasts Water ‘Like a Fire Hose’
Image: Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS (center) streaking through the stars, captured on Aug. 27, 2025 by the Gemini South telescope in Chile. As the comet nears the Sun, solar radiation vaporizes ice in its nucleus, unleashing jets of gas and dust that form a growing tail livescience.com. A Visitor From Beyond the Solar System Astronomers in late July 2025 realized that a faint new comet spotted by the ATLAS survey was no ordinary object – its orbit was highly eccentric (e > 1), meaning it wasn’t bound to the Sun at all space.com. This was the tip-off that the comet, now