New details released of mysterious 'interstellar object' as humanity told to 'prepare for wake-up call'

Nasa's Perseverance rover stationed on Mars quickly snapped photographs of the interstellar visitor as it came within 18.6 million miles of the Red Planet on October 3.

The ESA, which has previously stayed silent on 3I/ATLAS, used its ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) to also capture images of the mysterious object.

Although the icy nucleus and its coma, the ring of dust and gas surrounding it, could not be easily separated, the object's glow stood out against the darkness of space.

However, researchers feared that due to the galactic traveller being millions of miles away, cameras may have had a difficult time spotting the object.

Principal investigator of the CaSSIS camera Nick Thomas said: "This was a very challenging observation for the instrument.

"The comet is around 10,000 to 100,000 times fainter than our usual targets."

On Tuesday, the ESA branded 3I/ATLAS a "rare visitor", adding that "these comets are absolutely foreign".

The space agency said: "Every planet, moon, asteroid, comet and lifeform in our Solar System shares a common origin.

"But interstellar comets are true outsiders, carrying clues about the formation of worlds far beyond our own."

The ESA's ExoMars TGO was able to photograph the comet's coma, which is believed to span thousands of miles.

The ESA report said: "The full size of the coma could not be measured by CaSSIS because the brightness of the dust decreases quickly with distance from the nucleus.

"This means that the coma fades into the noise in the image.

Material in the coma of a comet is often forms a long tail behind it, which may sometimes span for millions of miles as it approaches the sun.

The ESA noted: "The tail is much dimmer than the coma. We can’t see the tail in the CaSSIS images, but it may become more visible in future observations as the comet continues to heat up and release more ice."

A former researcher at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Dr Horace Drew, has suggested a bright green glow seen in some images of the coment may point towards the object being an alien spacecraft covered in nickel.

On Monday, Dr Drew said on social media that 3I/ATLAS "is not a comet".

Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb has also previously theorised that the interstellar visitor may be of alien origin, saying: "As we get more data, when the sun puts more heat on this object, it might reveal its true nature.

"It could be a wake-up call for humanity if we realise that there is a smarter kid on our block."

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