A mysterious object hurtling through space has been identified as a rare “ interstellar object,” only the third of its kind ever seen.

In July, NASA reported its ATLAS (Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System) survey telescope in Chile identified a comet that originated from interstellar space. Arriving in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius, the comet was dubbed 3I/Atlas.

The comet poses no threat to Earth — it will remain at a distance of about 150 million miles away — but is unique. According to Livescience, the object is traveling towards the sun extremely fast, around 152,000 mph and is on an flat and straight trajectory that’s unlike anything else in the solar system.

This diagram shows the trajectory of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS as it passes through the s

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