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\n This diagram shows the trajectory of interstellar comet 3I\/ATLAS as it passes through the solar system. It will make its closest approach to the Sun in October.
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NASA\/JPL-Caltech<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n NASA\/JPL-Caltech<\/p>\n <\/span>\n<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n Astronomers have spotted a new comet, moving on a trajectory that indicates that it whizzed into our solar system from interstellar space and is just passing through.<\/p>\n It’s only the third time scientists have discovered this kind of visitor from outside our solar system. The first two, ‘Oumuamua and Comet Borisov, intrigued astronomers because of the chance to observe pieces from another star system beyond our own.<\/p>\n “This is like our chance to randomly sample what’s going on in the rest of the galaxy,” University of Oxford astrophysicist Chris Lintott recently told NPR, saying he and most other researchers really hadn’t given much thought to interstellar objects until the discovery of the first one in 2017.<\/p>\n