An interstellar comet 3l/ATLAS, the 3rd and fastest of its kind to be observed passing through earth’s solar system, was detected on July 1st 2025. The first such comet to be detected was 1l/Oumuamua in 2017, the 2nd was 2l/Borisov in 2019.
Interstellar comets are incredibly fast and can easily pass through earth’s solar system undetected. It is difficult to estimate how many of these objects race through in a given year. Despite the fact that the detected 3l/ATLAS is huge, with a 3-mile (5km) diameter, its nucleus is apparently not visible to the Hubble telescope which made the discovery. The expectation therefore is that the more powerful Rubin telescope which recently came online at the Rubin Observatory in Chile will be able to detect many of these racing objects in the coming years.
In a 2022 paper, Hoover et al. estimated that the Rubin Telescope will detect between 0.9-1.9 interstellar objects every year. It notes that these are lower limits which will be revised when there is more data. https://arxiv.org/pdf/2109.10406
A 2023 paper by Ezell and Loeb expects the Rubin Telescope to detect one small interstellar object, < 50 m in diameter, every one to two years. https://arxiv.org/pdf/2303.14766
Another 2023 paper, this time by Marceta and Seligman, used a simulated suite of interstellar objects to estimate that the Rubin Telescope should detect up to 70 interstellar objects per year. @ researchgate.net
“Synthetic Detections of Interstellar Objects with the Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time”
(Credit space.com/hubble/NASA/RubinObs/SLAC)
The world’s largest telescope at the Rubin Observatory has released its first images. The objectives include cataloguing 20 billion galaxies and 17 billion stars over the next decade, starting >> Monday June 23rd 2025.
Below
-The Virgo Cluster
-The Trifid and Lagoon Nebulae
(Credit: VRubinObs/NSF/DOE/NOIRLab/SLAC/AURA)
A region in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a galaxy linked to the Milky Way.
Credit: NASA, ESA and A. Nota (STScI/ESA)
The Lagoon Nebula
(Credit: ESO/SPECULOOS Team/E. Jehin)
A section of glacier collapses on Vallunaraju, in Peru, during a rescue drill.
All participants unharmed. ❄️ https://video.nostr.build/d3e177ae472ab99b4f94a9f3aef098406bdd11fe4f6b10182d605ab5999c47c2.mp4
Just amazing!
What an accomplishment…and it’s a beautifully crafted wallet. Congratulations!!🥳
Hello Jack. Procreate is the only reason I got an iPad. I just started working with their animation app, Dreams, over the weekend. I can let you know how that goes if you’re interested
Procreate is truly the only reason I got an iPad. I’m also starting to experiment with their latest app, Dreams. I can let you know how that goes if you’re interested.
“…Built on a foundation of theft, the technology is steering us toward a barren future…”
That bit in their literature is a little strongly worded. But in the context of human creativity I tend to agree.