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Interstellar Comet Makes Closest Approach to Earth

On Friday, Comet 3I/ATLAS will pass closest to Earth at 167 million miles, marking the third interstellar discovery by the ATLAS telescope .
Because it formed outside our galaxy, Comet 3I/ATLAS is a rare interstellar visitor that the astronomy community has tracked since its initial discovery over the summer.
Multiwavelength data from missions including European Space Agency's XMM-Newton showed Japan's X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission detected X-rays fanning out 248,000 miles and signatures of carbon, oxygen and nitrogen.
Officials emphasized the comet is 100% not posing a threat and will remain distant; skywatchers are advised to view it an hour or two before sunrise with an 8-inch telescope, while the Virtual Telescope Project will livestream it at 4:00 a.m. UTC on Friday.
Kohler warned that unlike comets, this object will not return to our solar system, and previous interstellar comets from 2017 and 2019 produced no X-rays, so more X-ray and multiwavelength observing missions are needed.

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Comet 3i/atlas Crosses Point of Maximum Approach to Earth

Comet 3I/ATLAS, which came from beyond the solar system and was declared an “extraterrestrial ship” by some scientists, reached its maximum approach to the Earth in the early morning of this Friday and continued, as reported today by the Solar Astronomy Laboratory of the Russian Academy of Sciences. “According to our calculations, about two hours ago, at about 7:16 Moscow time (01:16 in Chile), the 3I/ATLAS space object crossed the point of maxi…

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