{"id":217657,"date":"2025-07-11T18:10:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-11T23:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/07\/astronomers-say-new-interstellar-visitor-3i-atlas-is-very-likely-to-be-the-oldest-comet-we-have-ever-seen"},"modified":"2025-07-11T18:10:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-11T23:10:09","slug":"astronomers-say-new-interstellar-visitor-3i-atlas-is-very-likely-to-be-the-oldest-comet-we-have-ever-seen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/07\/astronomers-say-new-interstellar-visitor-3i-atlas-is-very-likely-to-be-the-oldest-comet-we-have-ever-seen","title":{"rendered":"Astronomers say new interstellar visitor 3I\/ATLAS is \u2018very likely to be the oldest comet we have ever seen\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/astronomers-say-new-interstellar-visitor-3i-atlas-is-very-likely-to-be-the-oldest-comet-we-have-ever-seen.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The thick disk is a band of our galaxy\u2019s most ancient stars that sandwiches the thin disk, which formed more recently and contains our relatively young star, <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/58-the-sun-formation-facts-and-characteristics.html\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/58-the-sun-formation-facts-and-characteristics.html\">the sun<\/a>, and the solar system.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is an object from a part of the galaxy we\u2019ve never seen up close before,\u201d University of Oxford astrophysicist Chris Lintott said. \u201cWe think there\u2019s a two-thirds chance this comet is older than the solar system, and that it\u2019s been drifting through <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/interstellar-space-definition-explanation\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/interstellar-space-definition-explanation\">interstellar space<\/a> ever since.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>If 3I\/ATLAS originates from the Milky Way\u2019s thick stellar disk, and thus formed around an ancient star, this also has implications for its chemical composition. Hopkins and crew suggest the interstellar interloper may be rich in water ice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The thick disk is a band of our galaxy\u2019s most ancient stars that sandwiches the thin disk, which formed more recently and contains our relatively young star, the sun, and the solar system. \u201cThis is an object from a part of the galaxy we\u2019ve never seen up close before,\u201d University of Oxford astrophysicist Chris Lintott [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,19,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-217657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asteroid-comet-impacts","category-chemistry","category-existential-risks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217657\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}