NASA warning as rare comet heading for Earth is 'unusually active'

The 'hypervolatile' space rock was spotted in early July but may have been visible on other telescopes as early as May. Researchers say the comet, named 3I/ATLAS, is 'unusually' bright. Comet 3I/Atlas was 'unusually' bright (Image: K Ly/Deep Random Survey / SWNS)

NASA issued a warning a rare comet heading for Earth is "unusually active". The erratic space rock was spotted by researchers in early July but was visible on other telescopes as early as May, according to Live Science. ‌

The interstellar visitor , named 3I/ATLAS, was noticed by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), which captures an image every 200 seconds. The comet travelled faster than traditional stars TESS is designed to look at, so researchers used a technique known as "shift-stacking" to pin