Astonishment at a visitor from another world: The interstellar object 3I/Atlas is travelling through the solar system at breakneck speed. Researchers caught a video of the heavenly body’s trip.

The pace at which 3I/Atlas is hurtling through the solar system is difficult to comprehend: the piece is now travelling from the gas giant Jupiter to the inner planets at around 210,000 kilometres per hour.

Researchers are confident, according to its quick speed, that 3I/Atlas is a visitor from another planet. This is just the third time in history that scientists have spotted such an interstellar object passing through our solar system. 3I/Atlas was detected during its approach to the Sun, as were its two predecessors, which were discovered rather late in 2017 and 2019.

Previously, only coarse-grained images of 3I/Atlas were available, but now the Very Large Telescope in Chile has captured new images.

The instrument, operated by the European Southern Observatory (ESO), acquired the images on Thursday, July 3, two days after the object was discovered and published in the ESO archive.

The images were compiled into a time-lapse video of about 16 seconds which reportedly shows 3I/Atlas moving to the right over the course of about 13 minutes.

According to ESO, even better images of the interstellar object could soon be available. This is because 3I/Atlas is getting ever closer to Earth.

“Currently more than 600 million kilometres from the Sun, 3I/ATLAS is moving toward the inner Solar System and is expected to reach its closest approach to Earth in late October 2025,” the organization said in a statement.

At that time, the object will be hidden behind the sun, but will be visible again in December 2025 when it makes its way back into interstellar space.

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