The Mystery Star Object may be the oldest known comet

A mysterious interstellar object, noticed last week by astronomers, may be the oldest comet ever seen, according to scientists.

Called 3i/Atlas, it can be three billion years older than our own solar system, the team at the University of Oxford suggests.

This is only the third time we have found an object that comes beyond our solar system.

The preliminary findings were presented on Friday at the National Meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society of the United Kingdom in Durham.

“We are all very excited by 3I/Atlas,” told BBC News University of Oxford Matthew Hopkins. He had just completed his doctoral studies when the site was discovered.

He says this can be more than seven billion years old and may be the most remarkable interstellar visitor so far.

3i/Atlas was first spotted on July 1, 2025 by the telescope to study Atlas in Chile when it was about 670 million km from the sun.

Since then, astronomers around the world have been competing to identify their path and find more details about it.

Hopkins believes it has arisen from the “thick disk” on the Milky Way. This is a group of ancient stars that go around and below the area where the sun and most stars are located.

The team believes that since 3i/Atlas probably formed around an old star, it is made up of very water ice.

This means that when it approaches the sun later this year, the energy from the sun will heat the surface of the site, leading to flames of money and dust.

This can create a glowing tail.

The researchers made their discoveries using a model developed by Hopkins.

“This is the object of a part of the galaxy that we have never seen up close before,” says Professor Chris Lintot, co -author of the study.

“We believe that two-thirds are likely to be older than the solar system and that it has been moving through the interstellar space since then.”

Later this year 3i/Atlas should be seen from the ground using amateur telescopes.

Before 3i/Atlas, only two others were seen. One is called 1i/’Oumuamua, found in 2017 and the other, called 2i/Borisov, discovered in 2019.

Currently, astronomers worldwide are preparing to start using a new, very powerful telescope in Chile, called Vera C Rubin.

When it begins to fully explore the southern night sky later this year, scientists expect it can find between 5 and 50 new interstellar objects.