Welcome to this week’s installment of The Intelligence Brief… On July 1st, a new object from interstellar space entered our solar system, as recently confirmed by NASA. In our breakdown of the exciting news, we’ll be looking at 1) an introduction to 3I/ATLAS, our latest interstellar visitor, 2) the unusual size estimates of this object, 3) the search for similar interstellar objects, and 4) the collection of additional data using space and Earth-based observatories.
Quote of the Week
“Interstellar visitor confirmed.”
– Tony Dunn, Amateur Astronomer
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Introducing 3I/ATLAS, Our Newest Interstellar Visitor
This week, the U.S. space agency confirmed the presence of a massive new object from beyond our solar system, whose extraordinary size and velocity are sparking intrigue and new questions about the nature of interstellar bodies.
“On July 1, the NASA-funded ATLAS (Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System) survey telescope in Rio Hurtado, Chile, first reported observations of a comet that originated from interstellar space,” read a statement issued by NASA on July 2.
“Arriving from the direction of the constellation Sagittarius, the interstellar comet has been officially named 3I/ATLAS,” the NASA statement read. “It is currently located about 420 million miles (670 million kilometers) away.”
An Object of Massive Proportions
Originally dubbed A11pl3Z, the interstellar interloper was added to the Near-Earth Object confirmation list by the IAU Minor Planet Center on July 1, 2025. The object appears to be traveling at a hyperbolic velocity of about 66 kilometers per second, and initial data suggests it is roughly 20 kilometers in diameter.
If accurate, these estimates potentially make 3I/ATLAS up to hundreds of times larger than the infamous interstellar object `Oumuamua, which first captured the fascination of astronomers in October 2017.
3I/ATLAS would also have to be larger than comet Borisov, the second known interstellar object to have entered our solar system. The significant mass of the new interstellar object challenges expectations about the frequency of their visits to our solar neighborhood.
The Hunt for Interstellar Objects
Objects like 3I/ATLAS are determined to be of interstellar origin for a few reasons. Primarily, the speed at which they are observed traveling through our solar system exceeds the 42 kilometers per second escape velocity of the solar system.
The first two known interstellar visitors, Oumuamua and Borisov, were quite different. Oumuamua’s odd shape—which some astronomers have argued to be elongated, while others have maintained its shape was more akin to a pancake or disc—and unexplained acceleration fueled speculation about its comet-like behavior, and even theories about it possibly having an artificial origin.
Borisov, by comparison, was far more similar in its overall nature to a comet. With 3I/ATLAS now in view, astronomers may have an opportunity to gauge whether this latest arrival from interstellar space will bear any similarities to its predecessors, or if it could display entirely new qualities that may expand our understanding of objects from beyond our planetary neighborhood.
Citizen Scientists on the Case
Another notable feature of the discovery is that amateur astronomers played a key role in 3I/ATLAS’s early detection, as noted by Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb in an op-ed about the recent discovery.
“The amateur astronomer Sam Deen identified earlier images of A11pl3Z in the ATLAS Survey from June 25 to 29, 2025, implying that it is almost certainly interstellar in origin,” Loeb recently wrote, also noting that another amateur astronomer, Filipp Romanov, “stacked 5 x 20-second images from the iTelescope.Net T72 (0.51-m f/6.8 reflector + CCD) in Chile,” which revealed the H-magnitude of 12 cited by NASA in relation to the object.
Based on this data, 3I/ATLAS is believed to have a diameter of approximately 20 kilometers. Currently, the object’s preliminary orbit indicates that it will come within approximately 1.4 astronomical units (AU) of the Sun later this year, in October, with its closest approach to Earth expected at 2.4 AU in December. A closer pass near Jupiter is projected for March 2026; however, astronomers don’t expect that it will come close enough at any time to attempt an intercept.
Collecting Data on 3I/ATLAS
With an intercept seemingly ruled out, right now, astronomers are planning to use instruments like the James Webb Space Telescope to attempt to gather more precise information about the object’s size, its shape, and whether it displays non-gravitational acceleration or other comet-like characteristics.
Additionally, three-dimensional models derived from the combination of infrared measurements, parallax data, and observations of 3I/ATLAS’s rotation will hopefully reveal aspects such as the level of surface reflectivity it displays. This could be an important opportunity for astronomers, since the arrival of ‘Oumuamua occurred more than four years before the James Webb Space Telescope was placed in orbit.
Fundamentally, if such observations can determine whether 3I/ATLAS’s brightness is due to sunlight reflecting off a surface, this could help confirm the estimates of its mass, meaning it could be millions of times greater than `Oumuamua’s.
In the months ahead, the Webb Telescope’s observations, complemented by ground-based observatories like the Rubin Observatory in Chile, may help solve some of the mysteries that 3I/ATLAS and its sudden appearance have presented to astronomers. With some luck, and with careful observational data, we may soon know whether 3I/ATLAS represents something relatively familiar—or maybe something more extraordinary—in our burgeoning catalog of interstellar visitors.
That concludes this week’s installment of The Intelligence Brief. You can read past editions of our newsletter at our website, or if you found this installment online, don’t forget to subscribe and get future email editions from us here. Also, if you have a tip or other information you’d like to send along directly to me, you can email me at micah [@] thedebrief [dot] org, or reach me on X: @MicahHanks.
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