On July 2, NASA revealed the existence of 3I/ATLAS, only the third ever interstellar object observed in the universe. These are objects that exist in interstellar space—the areas between stars—and which are not gravitationally bound to any star. The two other interstellar objects discovered to date are the comets 1I/ʻOumuamua and 2I/Borisov.
3I/ATLAS was discovered on July 1, when its existence was reported by a telescope at Rio Hurtado in Chile, operated by the Asteroid Terrestrial Impact Alert System. Known commonly as ATLAS, this is a NASA-funded system developed and operated by the University of Hawaii to detect asteroids that could potentially hit Earth.