NASA has revealed the incredible view of the comet named 3I/ATLAS, primarily the interstellar visitor hovering, and making its way around our solar system.
The images were taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope which has a pivotal role in enabling astronomers to accurately find out the object's accurate size. It is smaller in size than we thought, confirmed by NASA in an official statement.
Initially 3I/ATLAS was first discovered on July 1 and was confirmed later that it originated outside of the solar system.
The new astronomical object location was hovering around the inner solar system with a speed of approximately 130,000 mph and is expected to reach its closest point towards the sun in October this year.
However, this space object has captivated public’s attention earlier this month when an astrophysicist from Harvard University called it an alien spaceship.
It has been gaining speed from a maneuver which is used in spaceflight to alter the velocity of spacecraft using the gravitational force of a planet, passing countless stars.
Meanwhile, it is the third interstellar object detected in our solar system and astronomers have been quite concerned about its origin and scratching the actual fact of where it has come from and how it is made.
David Jewitt, an astronomer and science team leader for the Hubble Observations, said, “It’s like glimpsing a rifle bullet for a thousandth of a second. You can’t project that back with any accuracy to figure out where it started on its path.”
It is pertinent to note that at the end of this month, the science operations team gave an estimate that the alien comet was roughly around 7 miles across the formation of ice particles in the atmosphere.
At this point, Hubble’s images have suggested that the nucleus is probably closer to a maximum capacity of 3.5 miles, it still makes the largest interstellar object, one got ever spotted.
Keeping in line with NASA observations, the comet could be not smaller than 1000 feet.
According to the planned observations with the James Webb Space Telescope and other NASA predictions simultaneously, it will sharpen these numbers as the comet while getting closer in coming months.
Having a keen eye on these alien objects, we can definitely learn about distant star systems, and the planet's characteristics that orbit within them.