Comet 3I/ATLAS, the third interstellar object ever detected by astronomers, will make its closest strategy to Earth in a single day between Thursday and Friday (Dec. 18 to 19), when it will get to only 168 million miles (270 million kilometers) from our planet. It poses no risk to Earth.
The exact second will come at 1 a.m. EST (0600 GMT) on Dec. 19, based on Area.com. Although nonetheless just below twice the space from Earth because the solar — one thing that can preclude gorgeous photographs from large telescopes — it’s a singular alternative to glimpse an object from one other star system. Found in July 2025, it comes within the wake of 1I/’Oumuamua in 2017 and 2I/Borisov in 2019.
Any planetarium app — akin to Sky Tonight, Sky Information, Stellarium and SkySafari 7 Professional — can even have 3I/ATLAS in its database. That can be useful to seek out it visually. Technically, it’s seen in giant astronomy binoculars, however at magnitude 11, it’s going to look “like a tiny, barely out-of-focus star,” based on Sky at Night time.
A greater option to view the comet is with a medium-to-large telescope of about 12 inches, based on NASA, by means of which observers might spot a faint, fuzzy patch of greenish mild near the intense star Regulus in Leo and a fainter companion, known as Rho Leonis.
Within the meantime, astronomical telescopes on Earth and in area will proceed to observe it — some from a lot nearer distances than we’ll get. Simply at present, NASA launched new ultraviolet photographs of the comet taken with its Europa Clipper spacecraft from roughly 102 million miles (164 million km) away, closing the space from Earth by a few third. Keep tuned for extra NASA picture releases after the shut strategy.
