[Regnum] The interstellar object 3I/ATLAS passed through its closest point to Earth, bringing the distance from the celestial body to the planet to approximately 269 million km. This was reported on December 16 by the Solar Astronomy Laboratory of the Space Research Institute (IKI) of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
"At approximately 7:16 Moscow time, the 3I/ATLAS object passed its closest point to Earth. The distance to the object at that moment was, and, in fact, still is, 269,918,000 km—a huge distance by Earth standards, though, of course, completely insignificant in terms of interstellar distances," the Telegram channel reported.
3I/ATLAS's next stop will be Jupiter, which it will pass on March 16 at a distance of approximately 53 million km.
It is noted that in the second half of 2026, the object will go beyond the orbit of Jupiter and completely disappear from the field of view of all terrestrial instruments.
On November 29, the Solar Astronomy Laboratory of the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences reported that the brightness of 3I/ATLAS decreased by more than a third as it approached Earth. According to scientists, despite this, the interstellar object is the fourth brightest among the nearly 100 comets observable in the Earth's sky.
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