Meet the Third Ever (!!) Interstellar Comet

Short Wave

NPR

Daily News, Nature, Life Sciences, Astronomy, Science, News

4.7 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 11 July 2025

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A rare visitor from another star system has been spotted: the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS! It was detected July 1 by the NASA-funded Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, or ATLAS. Most known comets orbit the Sun and are bound by the gravity of the solar system ... but this object came from far beyond the pull of our Sun, traveling 137,000 miles per hour from another star. Now, scientists are racing to get a good image of it, in the hopes it can answer big questions like: What is the universe like where this comet is from? Is the solar system we live in unique?

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This message comes from Curiosity Weekly.
0:02.6	Science isn't just in the lab.
0:04.5	It's in the voices of people expanding what counts as science
0:08.0	and opening up whose science is really for.
0:11.0	Listen to Curiosity Weekly, wherever you get your podcasts.
0:15.5	You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.
0:20.9	Hey, shortwaver, Regina Barber here.
0:22.7	And Emily Kwong with our bi-weekly Science News Roundup featuring the hosts of all things
0:27.7	considered.
0:28.3	And today, one of our favorites, Ari Shapiro.
0:31.3	One of your four favorites.
0:32.6	One of our four favorites.
0:34.0	I'm excited to hear about our new interstellar visitor.
0:38.0	I've been dreaming up names for him or her or them.
0:40.3	We also got news about a plastic eating worm that could revolutionize recycling.
0:44.9	And new research on how some animal's sense of smell varies by altitude.
0:49.5	Nothing to sniff at.
0:51.4	All that on this episode of Shortwave, the science podcast from NPR.
0:59.6	Let's start with the interstellar visitor.
1:01.6	Please tell me he has big eyes and a glowing finger.
1:04.9	I wish.
1:05.9	No, it's a comet.
	...

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