"Last Sunday, at around 7:30 a.m. Moscow Time [4:30 a.m. GMT], the interstellar ‘comet-ship’ crossed the psychologically significant boundary of 300 million kilometers from Earth and is currently continuing to reduce its distance to the planet by approximately two million km every day. The object’s approach to Earth is caused mainly by Earth’s own motion, as its orbital motion is now directed almost precisely toward the point in the sky where 3I/ATLAS is flying," the statement said.
Scientists clarified that, if considering the comet’s trajectory relative to the Sun, it is already on its way out of the solar system while still approaching our planet.
3I/ATLAS is the third interstellar celestial body discovered by astronomers in the entire history of observations. The first of these was the asteroid Oumuamua, discovered in the autumn of 2017 and the second was the comet 2I/Borisov, detected by Russian astronomer Gennady Borisov in August 2019. There is a possibility that 3I/ATLAS will make its closest approach to Earth on December 19, 2025, with the distance being about 269 million km, after which the two bodies will begin to move apart in space. According to scientists, the comet poses no threat to Earth.
