Our solar system currently has a rare and fairly old guest: in an interstellar object (krone.at reported) last week it discovers the oldest comet ever observed.
Researchers from the British University of Oxford assume that the interstellar visitors, with the name 3i/Atlas (originally A11PL3Z, was called note) may be more than three billion years older than our solar system.
According to astronomer Matthew Hopkins, he could be more than seven billion years old. Accordingly, the “Water -Rijk Visitor” is only the third known object from outside our solar system, which was once observed in our cosmic neighborhood – and the first to reach us from a completely different area of our Milky Way.
Object was discovered at the beginning of June
Hopkins, who introduces his assumptions to a congress of the British Royal Astronomical Society, emphasizes: “From the previously known comets, our statistical method suggests that 3i/Atlas is probably the oldest comet we have ever seen.”
The building was first discovered on July 1 with a special telescope in Chile when it was approximately 670 million kilometers from the sun. Astrophysicist and co-author Chris Lintott-also moderator of the BBC show “The Sky At Night” Benadpress: “This is an object from a part of the galaxy that we have never seen up close.”
No danger to our earth
The object is not a danger to the earth. “It will be graceful on the sun, so completely safe and far away,” says astronomer Rainer Kresken, who works in the planetary defense office of the European Space Agency in Darmstadt, according to the first observations of the German news agency DPA.
Source: Krone
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