The greatest image to date of a fast-moving comet coming to our solar system from another star has been taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.
The most recent images were released Thursday by the European Space Agency and NASA.
With NBC 7, you can watch San Diego News for free, anywhere, at any time.
Only the third known interstellar object to approach our way, the comet known as 3I-Atlasi is not dangerous to Earth and was discovered last month by a telescope in Chile.
Its frozen core was once thought to be many miles across, but Hubble’s findings have reduced that estimate to no more than 3.5 miles. Scientists say it might potentially be as small as 1,000 feet.
With our News Headlines email, you can receive the best local San Diego stories every morning.
The comet, which is traveling at 130,000 miles per hour, will pass closer to Mars than Earth while remaining safely away from both. It was captured on camera by Hubble a few weeks ago at a distance of 277 million miles. Traces of a dusty tail and a teardrop-shaped dust cloud surrounding the nucleus were seen by the orbiting telescope.
___
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Department of Science Education of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute provide support to the Associated Press Health and Science Department. All content is entirely the AP’s responsibility.
