{"id":224775,"date":"2025-11-09T08:03:39","date_gmt":"2025-11-09T14:03:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/11\/rapid-brightening-of-interstellar-comet-3i-atlas-as-it-nears-sun-surprises-scientists"},"modified":"2025-11-09T08:03:39","modified_gmt":"2025-11-09T14:03:39","slug":"rapid-brightening-of-interstellar-comet-3i-atlas-as-it-nears-sun-surprises-scientists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/11\/rapid-brightening-of-interstellar-comet-3i-atlas-as-it-nears-sun-surprises-scientists","title":{"rendered":"Rapid brightening of interstellar comet 3I\/ATLAS as it nears sun surprises scientists"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/rapid-brightening-of-interstellar-comet-3i-atlas-as-it-nears-sun-surprises-scientists2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>An interstellar comet that originated outside our solar system has just made its closest pass to the sun, brightening dramatically and rapidly as it did so. The reason for the sudden extreme activity is currently puzzling scientists.<\/p>\n<p>A stranger in the neighborhood The latest visitor to our corner of the galaxy was first spotted on July 1, 2025, by astronomers and officially named comet 3I\/ATLAS. It\u2019s only the third interstellar comet ever recorded and was calculated to be on a course that would take it close to the sun without plunging into it.<\/p>\n<p>As the object neared its closest point to our star (perihelion), the immense solar glare made it virtually impossible for Earth-based telescopes to see it. So astronomers turned to space-based solar observatories like SOHO, STEREO-A and GOES-19 to keep a watchful eye.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An interstellar comet that originated outside our solar system has just made its closest pass to the sun, brightening dramatically and rapidly as it did so. The reason for the sudden extreme activity is currently puzzling scientists. A stranger in the neighborhood The latest visitor to our corner of the galaxy was first spotted on [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":707,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-224775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224775","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\/707"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224775\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}