For months now, astronomers have been closely watching the mysterious interstellar object 3I/ATLAS as it rips through the solar system at a breakneck velocity. And before it finally leaves us for good, the object — which is broadly believed to be a comet, in spite of other theories that we’ll get to in a minute — is expected to make its closest approach to Earth in just over a week from now, coming within just 167 million miles. While that’s still roughly 1.5 times the distance from the Earth to…
