NASA on Wednesday released new images of an interstellar comet, just the third visitor ever confirmed from elsewhere in the galaxy, which show the object as a bright point of light surrounded by a blurry halo of gas and dust.

In the long-awaited photos, the comet, dubbed 3I/ATLAS, mostly appears as an illuminated dot, but some images also reveal its tail as a faint, elongated smudge. [The interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, circled in the center, as seen by NASA’s Lucy spacecraft. This image was made by stacking a series of images taken on Sept. 16, as the comet was zooming toward Mars.]The interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, circled in the center, as seen by NASA’s Lucy spacecraft. This image was made by stacking a series of images taken on Sept. 16, as the comet was zooming toward Mars. Comet 3I/ATLA

See Full Page