The object gained an official name, C/2025 N1 or 3I/ATLAS, on Wednesday. Moving at a record-setting speed for an interstellar visitor, it is travelling along a curve but not in a closed loop – confirmation of its origins outside the Solar System. It will zoom past our Sun without being captured by its gravity.

NASA has discovered 3I/ATLAS, only the third known interstellar object, now passing through our solar system from the direction of Sagittarius

Spotting a possible interstellar object is incredibly rare, and it’s exciting that our UH-operated system caught it,” University of Hawaiʻi Institute for Astronomy’s John Tonry said following the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) detection of a high-speed object on July 1,