(NewsNation) — In just a matter of days, the interstellar comet known as 3I/ATLAS is expected to pass closest to the sun between the orbits of Mars and Earth.

New data from the International Gemini Observatory revealed the object has grown in its estimated size, with it now weighing more than 33 billion tons.

Avi Loeb, a Harvard University astrophysicist, told NewsNation's Elizabeth Vargas that the object's increase in size is because it's losing mass.

"We see a cloud of gas around it that is a result of its warming up as it gets close to the sun, but it doesn't change its path," said Loeb.

"There is no push that is visible on the trajectory of the object, and that means that it's very massive, at least a thousand times more massive than the previous one, which was a comet (Gennady) Bo

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