Ancient Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS Nears Sun – A 10-Billion-Year Visitor Ignites Awe and Alien Speculation
Comet 3I/ATLAS was discovered on July 1, 2025 by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System survey telescope at Río Hurtado, Chileesa.int. ATLAS – a NASA-funded sky survey designed to spot incoming asteroids – detected a faint magnitude ~18 object moving against the starry backgroundras.ac.uk. Initially catalogued as C/2025 N1 under comet naming conventions, the object raised immediate excitement because its orbit did not appear bound to the Sunts2.tech. Within days, astronomers determined the new comet was on a highly hyperbolic trajectory, not a closed ellipse like ordinary comets. In August 2025 the International Astronomical Union confirmed its interstellar nature and redesignated it 3I/ATLAS, marking it as the third interstellar object ever observeden.wikipedia.org. This celestial visitor is sometimes also referred to by its survey designation “A11pl3Z,” but the name 3I/ATLAS reflects its extraordinary status beyond the Solar System.
