A new image has revealed the clearest glimpse yet of an interstellar visitor zipping through our solar system.
The Hubble Telescope and its Wide Field Camera 3 got an incredible view of the comet named 3I/ATLAS, which came from beyond our solar system, on July 21 when the object was 277 million miles (445 million kilometers) from Earth.
In the image, a teardrop-shaped dust cocoon can be seen streaking from the cometโs icy nucleus. A cometโs nucleus is its solid core, made of ice, dust and rocks. When comets travel near stars such as the sun, heat causes them to release gas and dust, which creates their signature tails.
๐ This NASA/ESA @HUBBLE_space Telescope image shows our latest unexpected interstellar visitor, now called Comet 3I/ATLAS. The comet has a teardrop-shaped cocoon of dust coming off its solid icy nucleus, with size estimated up to 5 km across. pic.twitter.com/IHVWYenBsG
— European Space Agency (@esa) August 7, 2025
A Very Large Telescope (VLT) has captured new footage of 3I/ATLAS, an interstellar object discovered just last week. pic.twitter.com/l4atiN3VlH
— All day Astronomy (@forallcurious) July 8, 2025
