The NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile recently captured rare footage of the visitor known as 3I/ATLAS — only the third interstellar object discovered. What’s more impressive: The observatory recorded the video a full 10 days before the comet was officially identified by NASA 's Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System.

Most astrophysicists widely agree 3I/ATLAS displays all the telltale signs of an icy comet. Now, a trio of researchers led by Avi Loeb, a controversial astrophysicist from Harvard University,