The European Southern Observatory has captured the clearest images yet of the interstellar visitor 3I/ATLAS as it moves inward through the solar system.

NASA has discovered a new interstellar comet that's currently located about 420 million miles away from Earth. The space agency spotted the quick-moving object with the Atlas telescope in Chile on Tuesday and confirmed it was a comet from another star system. The new interstellar comet's official name is 3I/ATLAS.

Interstellar visitor Comet 3I/ATLAS was discovered just a week ago and ever since, astronomers across the world have been hard at work following it, trying to gather as much data on it as possible. The initial data on this object already suggested marked differences between it and the previous two known interstellar objects that crossed the Solar System.

You can watch comet 3I/ATLAS live online tonight (July 3), thanks to the Virtual Telescope Project, which will livestream views beginning at 6:00 p.m. EDT (2200 GMT). The feed will showcase imagery from telescopes in Manciano, Italy, weather permitting. Tune in via Virtual Telescope's WebTV, YouTube channel or here on Space.com.

Late in the evening on July 1, a telescope in Chile that is part of the global, NASA-funded Asteroid Terrestrial-Impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) picked up on a new moving dot in the sky, an object traveling past the orbit of Jupiter.

Astronomers are scrambling to gather data on a mysterious object that’s currently hurtling through the solar system. Preliminary observations suggest it came from interstellar space, and if confirmed, it would mark the third discovery of an interstellar object in history.

Sometimes "the universe comes to us," writes the European Space Agency. For the third time since 2017, an interstellar object will enter our solar system. What is it and are we prepared?