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Scientists believe that a recently discovered interstellar object known as 3I/Atlas, could be the oldest comet ever seen.

What is 3I/Atlas?

Scientists recently discovered a new interstellar object they named 3I/Atlas. This object first appeared on July 1, 2025, when a special telescope in Chile, called Atlas, spotted it. At the time, it was about 670 million kilometers from our Sun.

Scientists believe 3I/Atlas could be a very old comet, possibly even older than our Solar System itself, making it more than seven billion years old.

This is the only third interstellar object scientists have ever found, after 1I/ʻOumuamua (in 2017) and 2I/Borisov (in 2019).

What are interstellar objects?

Interstellar objects are space rocks or icy bodies that come from outside our own Solar System. They do not orbit the Sun; instead, they just travel straight through part of space. They come from other star systems.

Scientists have suspected these objects exist for a long time, but only recently telescopes have become powerful enough to see them.

How Scientists Spot Interstellar Objects?

Scientists determine if a space object is interstellar by carefully studying its "trajectory," which is the path it takes through space.

Objects in Our Solar System => Every planet, asteroid, and comet that belongs to our Solar System travels in a closed, oval-shaped path called an ellipse. They speed up when they get close to the Sun (a point called perihelion) and slow down when they are far away (a point called aphelion). The Sun's gravity always pulls them back, keeping them in their orbit.  

Interstellar Objects => Follow a completely different path called a hyperbolic orbit, it does not curve back around to the Sun. These objects move so fast that the Sun's gravity simply cannot slow them down enough to trap them in an orbit. They just zip past the Sun and keep going, straight out of our Solar System.

Source: 

INDIAN EXPRESS