We’re about to find many more interstellar interlopers—here’s how to visit one
Text settings Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only Learn more Minimize to nav A few days ago, an inscrutable interstellar interloper made its closest approach to Mars, where a fleet of international spacecraft seek to unravel the red planet’s ancient mysteries. Several of the probes encircling Mars took a break from their usual activities and turned their cameras toward space to catch a glimpse of an object named 3I/ATLAS, a rogue comet that arrived in our Solar System from interstellar space and is now barreling toward perihelion—its closest approach to the Sun—at the end of this month. This is the third interstellar object astronomers have detected within our Solar…
