What We Are Learning from Comet 31/ATLAS and the World’s Powerful Telescopes

On my watch – What We Are Learning from Comet 31/ATLAS and the World’s Powerful Telescopes

By Anne W. Semmes

July of 2025 became historic with the July 1 spotting of perhaps the world’s oldest comet having arrived at great velocity from outside our solar system. It’s also the third interstellar object (ISO) discovered since 2017. It’s been named 3I/ATLAS by NASA having been seen by one of NASA’s five world-wide telescopes in its Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, or ATLAS, that watches for space rocks that might be on a collision course with Earth.

But NASA has stated that 3I/ATLAS “poses no threat to Earth and will remain at a distance of 160 million miles.” Time to reach out to my astronomer stepbrother Michael Snowden, based in Christchurch, New Zealand. Michael had, thr