On the cold and mysterious birthplace of comet 3I/Atlas The interstellar comet. Credit: International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/Shadow the Scientist . Where did the comet 3I/Atlas come from? It was not born in our solar system, instead, the comet came from the stars. It is passing through our system of planets at high speed, moving so fast that although the Sun has deflected its path, it cannot hold on to the comet. 3I/Atlas will, in the years to come, fly outwards, escape the Sun’s gravity, and then drift on alone through the galaxy for another million years or so. Based on its trajectory, speed, and direction, astronomers thought 3I/Atlas was probably ancient. It may have come from the halo of stars surrounding the Milky Way. If it did, then the comet could be extremely old indeed , and might have been born around an earlier generation of stars. At the end of last year, as the comet approached the Sun, astronomers measured the gases streaming off it.…