News Space

A newly discovered interstellar object might predate the solar system

The possible comet 3I/ATLAS might be over 7 billion years old

A diagram showing the orbits of the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS (a possible comet) and the sun.

The interstellar object 3I/ATLAS may have come from the thick disk of the Milky Way. Its predicted orbit is shown in red dashed lines; the sun’s orbit is shown in yellow.

M. Hopkins/Ōtautahi-Oxford team. Base map: DPAC/Gaia/ESA, Stefan Payne-Wardenaar (CC-BY-SA 4.0)

By Celina Zhao

The solar system’s newest visitor, 3I/ATLAS, may be 3 billion years older than the sun and its planets.