An interstellar visitor is zipping through the Milky Way, and a team of Michigan State University researchers is keeping track of its cosmic journey.
Comet 3I/ATLAS is travelling from outside of the solar system. It’s the third ever recorded interstellar object passing through our star system and was first discovered in July.
The European Space Agency released photos earlier this week of the comet speeding past Mars.
A spacecraft orbiting the Red Planet captured the photo from more than 18,000 miles away, according to the agency. The spacecraft’s camera usually photographs Mars’s surface and isn’t designed to take pictures from so far away.
But those are the last pictures that will be taken of the comet for a few months, said researcher Tessa Frincke. She’s an astrophysics doctoral student at MSU.
“No new observations are being taken because of 3I/ATLAS’sorientation right now behind the Sun,” she said. “The Sun's covering it up. But later this year, it should come out on the other side, and then we should be able to observe it.”
Space agencies are expecting to be able to gather data again in December.
Frincke said amateur astronomers are unlikely to spot the comet in Mid-Michigan unless they have very powerful telescopes.
Even then, she said, some astronomical objects are only visible from the Southern Hemisphere.
The cosmic visitor has sparked rumors of extraterrestrial travelers and alien motherships. Those conspiracies have been fueled by NASA failing to update its website and 3I/ATLAS images amid the federal government shutdown.
“Clearly, we know that this object is a comet,” Frincke said. “We’re seeing the typical outgassing that comets usually have. As comets approach the Sun, they heat up. And a lot of those elements transform from their solid state straight to gas.”
Hiro Yaginuma works with Frincke and is an undergraduate student studying astrophysics.
He suggested sending a spacecraft closer to the comet to get more valuable data and images.
Yaginuma said launching from Earth is difficult, but it could have worked from Mars.
“From Mars, if there's some orbiter that can change its mission and can do something on 3I/ATLAS – and also have some fuel left – it could be possible,” Yaginuma said. “It was feasible last weekend.”
Theoretically, it could have worked last weekend when the comet was closest to Mars, he said. But that window passed.
Yaginuma said he hopes sending spacecrafts to interstellar objects to collect data will happen in the future – but funding constraints and adjusting spacecraft velocity could make it difficult.
“If we keep finding more [interstellar] objects, we have more chances to calculate mission systems,” Yaginuma said. He added, “If there’s the chance that an object gets close to a planet or spacecraft, we can get to it.”