Overview
- The object crossed inside 300 million kilometers around 07:30 Moscow time on November 23 and is narrowing the distance to Earth by about 2 million kilometers per day, the Space Research Institute reported.
- Laboratory head Sergei Bogachev said the minimum distance is expected to be about 269 million kilometers, with non-gravitational acceleration from cometary activity described as moderate and shifting the estimate by hundreds of thousands of kilometers.
- NASA has classified 3I/ATLAS as a natural comet that poses no danger to Earth and is coordinating observations with more than a dozen spacecraft.
- Although it is moving outward relative to the Sun, the comet continues to draw closer to Earth due to the current geometry of Earth’s orbit.
- The comet will not be visible to the public through binoculars or amateur telescopes and can be studied only with powerful research instruments.