Mysterious interstellar object is caught on camera hurtling through the solar system - as scientist claims it could be an alien spacecraft
First spotted by NASA on July 1, scientists from around the world have now confirmed that this unexpected visitor has travelled through space from a distant star.
Officially titled 3I/ATLAS, the rare interloper is 12 miles (20km) long and hurtling towards the sun at 135,000 miles per hour.
Now, using a powerful telescope in Hawaii, the European Space Agency (ESA) has captured the first video of 3I/ATLAS as it makes its journey through space.
As the short video shows, the object is extremely bright, which means it is either many times larger than any other interstellar object or has another source of illumination.
Most experts agree that this extra illumination is caused by the fact that 3I/ATLAS is an active comet, producing a glowing 'coma' of ice and gas as it approaches the sun.
However, one Harvard professor claims that this might not be explained by natural means.
Professor Avi Loeb, a physicist at Harvard University, told MailOnline: 'If it is not a comet, then its large brightness would be a big surprise and potentially signal a non-natural origin, perhaps from artificial light.'
3I/ATLAS was detected as a faint speck of light by NASA's Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) telescope.
Since then, professional and amateur astronomers around the world have scrambled to gather more data.
Scientists quickly combed older data to find observations of the object that had previously been missed, in a process called precovery.
Combining these with hundreds of new observations, scientists were able to officially confirm that 3I/ATLAS was an interstellar object.
Currently 420 million miles (670 million kilometres) away from Earth, 3I/ATLAS's trajectory and incredible speed meant it must be passing through our solar system after being ejected by its own star.
NASA predicts that it will reach its closest point to the sun on October 30, at a distance of 130 million miles (210 million km) - passing just within the orbit of Mars.
Thankfully, the object poses no threat to Earth and will pass harmlessly at around 150 million miles (240 million km) away at its closest point.
This is only the third time that scientists have managed to spot an interstellar object passing through the solar system.
The first was 'Oumuamua in 2017, followed by Borisov in 2019.
When 'Oumuamua was first detected, certain irregularities in its spin and velocity prompted Professor Loeb and his co-author, Dr Shmuel Bialy, to suggest that it could be alien in origin.
Professor Loeb says: ''Oumuamua exhibited a large non-gravitational acceleration which was anomalous given its lack of evaporation.'
Similarly, Professor Loeb now suggests that 3I/ATLAS could be a similar type of alien craft.
While experts say there is no evidence to support this idea, some researchers say we can't rule out the possibility just yet.
Professor Michael Garrett, Director of Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, told MailOnline: 'More observations are definitely needed.'
Asked whether the object could be an alien craft, Professor Garret responded: 'Who knows - it could be - that's why it will be important to make as many different measurements as possible to test all hypotheses.'
'It's unlikely that it is, but that doesn't mean to say we shouldn't check. We don't know much about these interstellar objects, so we learn more each time we encounter one.'
NASA and ESA have now confirmed that 3I/ATLAS is a comet due to the presence of a cloud of dust and gases called a coma. These are produced when the ice in a comet is warmed by the light of a nearby star like the sun
However, Professor Garret adds that there is currently no evidence the object is alien in nature, and it is more likely to be 'an icy body that has escaped from another planetary system and wandered by the solar system by chance'.
Currently, the overwhelming majority of evidence points to the fact that 3I/ATLAS is a comet, a small body made up of frozen gases and ice.
This is because astronomers have spotted a nebulous envelope of gas and dust known as a coma surrounding the object as it is heated by the sun.
Based on these observations, both NASA and ESA are now confident enough to confirm that 3I/ATLAS is an interstellar comet.
This also explains why 3I/ATLAS is so bright, since the material in the coma reflects the sun's light far more than rock or ice alone.
Dr Mark Norris, an astronomer from the University of Central Lancashire, told MailOnline: 'If there's a coma, it by definition is a comet, because this means that it is outgassing.
'This thing is still quite far from the sun, so you can expect, therefore, as it gets closer, you should get a bigger cloud of material; and that should become clear as we get more observations going forward.'
However, by the time the comet reaches its closest point to the Earth, it will be hidden behind the sun, so astronomers will need to wait until it reemerges in December to make the best observations.
Our first interstellar visitor sailed past Earth at at 97,200mph in 2017, but what exactly was Oumuamua?
A cigar-shaped object named 'Oumuamua sailed past Earth at 97,200mph (156,428km/h) in October.
It was first spotted by a telescope in Hawaii on 19 October, and was observed 34 separate times in the following week.
It is named after the Hawaiian term for 'scout' or 'messenger' and passed the Earth at about 85 times the distance to the moon.
It was the first interstellar object seen in the solar system, and it baffled astronomers.
Initially, it was thought the object could be a comet.
However, it displays none of the classic behavior expected of comets, such as a dusty, water-ice particle tail.
The asteroid is up to one-quarter mile (400 meters) long and highly-elongated - perhaps 10 times as long as it is wide.
That aspect ratio is greater than that of any asteroid or asteroid observed in our solar system to date.
But the asteroid's slightly red hue — specifically pale pink — and varying brightness are remarkably similar to objects in our own solar system.
Around the size of the Gherkin skyscraper in London, some astronomers were convinced it was piloted by aliens due to the vast distance the object traveled without being destroyed – and the closeness of its journey past the Earth.
Alien hunters at SETI – the Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence based at Berkeley University, California said there was a possibility the rock was 'an alien artefact'.
But scientists from Queen's University Belfast took a good look at the object and said it appears to be an asteroid, or 'planetesimal' as originally thought.
Researchers believe the cigar-shaped asteroid had a 'violent past', after looking at the light bouncing off its surface.
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