The ATLAS (short for Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System) is a NASA-funded program developed by the University of Hawaii. It incorporates data from four ground-based telescopes, two in Hawaii, one in Chile, and one in South Africa, to scan the entire sky twice a night, looking for asteroids and other impactors.

Dubbed 3I/ATLAS, it is blazing through our cosmic cul-de-sac at truly awe-inspiring speeds between the main asteroid belt and Jupiter.

NASA has discovered the third known interstellar object to pass through our solar system, but the icy snowball object poses no threat to Earth.