Image: Deep VLT image of 3I-ATLAS, a new interstellar object (potw2527a)
Description: ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) has obtained new images of 3I/ATLAS, an interstellar object discovered last week. Identified as a comet, 3I/ATLAS is only the third visitor from outside the Solar System ever found, after 1I/ʻOumuamua and 2I/Borisov. Its highly eccentric hyperbolic orbit, unlike that of objects in the Solar System, gave away its interstellar origin. This VLT image is the result of stacking several observations obtained on the night of 3 July 2025. When combining the different frames, the background stars were removed, showing only a deep image of the interstellar comet. The data were obtained with the FORS2 instrument, and are available in the ESO archive.
Title: Deep VLT image of 3I-ATLAS, a new interstellar object (potw2527a)
Credit: This media was produced by the European Southern Observatory (ESO), under the identifier potw2527a This tag does not indicate the copyright status of the attached work. A normal copyright tag is still required. See Commons:Licensing.
Author: ESO/O. Hainaut
Usage Terms: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
License: CC BY 4.0
License Link: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Attribution Required?: Yes
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