Astronomer Gianluca Masi captured a spectacular image of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS on Nov. 19, as it raced headlong away from the sun following a close pass of our parent star on Oct. 29, an event known as perihelion.

Comet 3I/ATLAS was discovered on July 1 of this year and was quickly confirmed to be only the third interstellar object known to visit our solar system, after the 2017 flyby of bizarre object 1I/'Oumuamua and the more traditionally comet-like arrival of 2I/Borisov in 2019. NASA will release new images of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS that were "collected by a number of the agency's missions" during a press conference today (Nov. 19) at 3 p.m. EST (2000 GMT), which you can watch live here on Space.com, courtesy of NASA.

Masi captured 3I/ATLAS soon after it emerged from behin

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