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Scientists trace latest interstellar comet's home to a cold, isolated corner of the Milky Way

phys.org·Marcia Dunn·23 days ago
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This image, provided by NASA, shows the interstellar comet 3I/Atlas captured by the Hubble Space Telescope on Nov. 30, 2025, about 178 million miles (286 million kilometers) from Earth. (NASA, ESA, STScI, D. Jewitt (UCLA), M.-T. Hui (Shanghai Astronomical Observatory), J. DePasquale (STScI) via AP, File) The comet that rambled past us from another star last year likely originated in a cold, isolated corner of the galaxy that had yet to gel into its own solar system, astronomers reported Thursday. Comet 3I/Atlas is only the third interstellar visitor to be confirmed and quite possibly the oldest. Scientists estimate it could be up to 11 billion years old, more than twice as old as the sun. A team led by the University of Michigan used the ALMA observatory in Chile's Atacama Desert to examine the comet last fall.…

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