University of Oxford astronomer Matthew Hopkins is part of a team of scientists that think 3I/ATLAS, discovered on July 1, 2025 by the ATLAS survey telescope, is around 7 billion years old.
I don’t know how I missed hearing about this until now!
What are the chances of getting a probe to intercept and retrieve a sample launched before its gone?
None. We found it too late, we’re going to be nowhere near it when it passes near Earth’s orbit, and it’s going be VERY fast.
There is/was talk of getting something developed to catch up to Oumuamua (the first visitor we’ve found). It’s much “slower” at 26 km/s. This new one, Atlas is going about the same speed as New Horizons, the fastest probe we’ve done so far (and that was with numerous gravity boosts, meaning it took time). So yeah, without having something already in space ready and very fast acceleration, this one will be long gone.
