Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS Changes Color and Gets a Boost

An article available on the preprint server arXiv, awaiting peer review for publication, reveals that the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS changed color for the second time and is showing evidence of acceleration caused by factors other than gravity.3I/ATLAS is the third confirmed interstellar object to pass through the Solar System, following asteroid 1I/‘Oumuamua and comet 2I/Borisov. The comet was detected on July 1 by astronomers from the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS), funded by NASA, which monitors celestial bodies that could pose a collision risk to Earth. Since then, the ‘interloper’ has been continuously monitored as it could be a true time capsule, preserving material dating back billions of years – a trace of what the environment was like in the early eras of the Universe. Understanding the composition of this object may help reveal from which part of the galaxy and under what conditions it formed.