New Comet Discovery is Only the Third Interstellar Object from Beyond Solar System

Published 07/04/25 at 6:55 a.m.
By Oregon Coast Beach Connection Staff

(Portland, Oregon) - The first of July saw an amazing discovery in the skies, as a NASA-funded telescope in Chile reported finding a new comet that had originated outside of our solar system. It's only the third such object from elsewhere beyond the stars that we've been able to document.

NASA reported the discovery this week, made via the ATLAS (Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System) survey telescope in Rio Hurtado. Now about 420 million miles away, it's been named 31/ATLAS and has come from the direction of the constellation Sagittarius.

31/ATLAS is only visible with powerful telescopes – and unfortunately something the Pacific Northwest won't be able to see with the naked eye. Portland, Oregon, the Washington coast or Seattle will not get to witness this like last year's Comet ATLAS.

NASA said there had been some hints before July.

“Observations from before the discovery have been gathered from the archives of three different ATLAS telescopes around the world and the Zwicky Transient Facility at the Palomar Observatory in San Diego County, California,” NASA said in a press release. “These 'pre-discovery' observations extend back to June 14.”

A good number of telescopes around the world have confirmed the discovery and made additional observations since. These include one of the few pictures of the object, made by David Rankin of Saguaro Observatory in Utah.

Now, other observers think 31/ATLAS could be the largest interstellar object found wandering past Earth at 10 to 20 kilometers wide. However, another theory holds it could be somewhat small and made of ice, which simply reflects back more light.

Comet 2023 A3 last year: Oregon Coast Beach Connection photo.

More observations and data need to be acquired.

“The comet poses no threat to Earth and will remain at a distance of at least 1.6 astronomical units (about 150 million miles or 240 million km),” NASA said. “3I/ATLAS should remain visible to ground-based telescopes through September, after which it will pass too close to the Sun to observe. It is expected to reappear on the other side of the Sun by early December, allowing for renewed observations.”

Other predictions have it being visible into late October.

Astronomy News, Updates from Oregon Coast, Washington Coast Astronomy from a Pacific Northwest Perspective

Back in 2017, the object named Oumuamua was discovered by telescopes, the first object known as interstellar in origin. It was such an unusual, cylindrical shape that some scientists thought it could be a spacecraft, although the science community has since all but disproved that.

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