Alien Comet 3i/Atlas is about seven miles (11.2 km) wide and is the largest interstellar object ever discovered, according to newly released photos from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory.
The detailed images captured before the ext-solar entities were officially discovered highlight the immeasurable power of record-breaking telescopes and show how valuable it is to find future interstellar intruders, researchers say.
The 3i/Atlas was discovered on July 1st and illuminated the barrels towards the sun exceeding 130,000 mph (210,000 km/h). Less than 24 hours later, NASA confirmed it was the third known interstellar object (ISO). It soon became clear that 3i/Atlas is a comet, and computer simulations track the hint that it is likely to be up to 3 billion years more than Earth, suggesting it could potentially become the oldest comet ever detected.
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So far, all researchers have been able to clarify the size of comets. Its coma, the clouds of ice, dust and gas surrounding it, weighing up to 15 miles (24 km). However, the size of its icy nucleus, or outer shell, remained a mystery.
However, in a new study uploaded to the preprint server Arxiv on July 17, a group of over 200 researchers were able to find images of comets in Vera C. Rubin’s extensive initial dataset, revealing possible sizes of the nucleus.
Images snapped on June 21 suggest that the comet’s nucleus radius is likely about 3.5 miles or about 7 miles in diameter.
Related: Interstellar Comet 3i/Atlas is converted to a giant “space rainbow” with Trippy New Telescope image
So far, only two other ISOs have been identified. 1i/’Oumuamua, an asteroid discovered in 2017. However, 2i/Borisov is a comet discovered in 2019. However, astronomers have long suspected that more ISOs had passed through the solar system, undetected.
“Oumuamua is thought to be about 0.2 miles (0.4 km) wide, but its exact shape was unknown, but the comet Borisov has a nucleus about 0.6 miles (1 km) wide, meaning 3i/Atlas is the largest ISO ever seen.
The new study also helped scientists to closely observe the comet’s coma and identify the large amount of dust and water ice surrounding its nucleus. These additional findings provide further evidence that 3i/Atlas is a natural comet. This is not a disguised probe sent here by advanced alien civilizations, as controversial researchers have proposed in recent weeks.
Vera C. Rubin Observatory in the Andes of Chile is equipped with the world’s largest digital camera and is about to commence a decade-long mission to scan the sky in the southern hemisphere known as the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). Telescope released its first image in June, revealing more than 10 million galaxies in unprecedented detail, and has already discovered thousands of new asteroids.
The fact that newly released photos can determine the size of the 3i/Atlas 10 days before the object is discovered is evidence of what Vera C. Rubin can achieve when fully switched on later this year, the researchers write.
Many experts believe the observation deck will revolutionize ISO research and, according to Forbes, predicts that it could potentially find up to 50 new alien intruders within the next decade.
