A comet was caught falling apart on camera, using a powerful telescope in Hawaii.

Comet C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) crumbled in high-resolution footage captured by the Gemini North telescope atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii. Glowing pieces of the comet are visible in the 8.1-meter diameter optical/infrared telescope, which is part of a twin pair of telescopes at the International Gemini Observatory.

New imagery of the comet released Thursday (Jan. 29) shows pieces tumbling apart in separate pictures obtained Nov. 11 and Dec. 6. The National Science Foundation-funded work complements a number of other observations by professionals and amateurs late last year.

The comet, which was a loosely held collection of ice and dust, swooped around the sun in October and made its closest approach on Oct. 8. The strong solar gravity and the pressure of the solar wind, or constant stream of particles streaming off our sun, fragmented the comet into several chunks.

For example, astronomer Gianluca Masi, of the Virtual Telescope Project in Italy, imaged the breaking-apart comet in early November using a Celestron C14 Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope on a Paramount ME robotic mount. The images appeared to show "three fragments of the original nucleus and possibly a fourth one," Masi wrote in a statement accompanying the images.

Astronomers at the Asiago Observatory in Italy also previously showed the comet in two fragments, separated by roughly 1,200 miles (2,000 km), on Nov. 11. They used a 1.82-meter Copernicus telescope to achieve the work.

C/2025 K1 (ATLAS), as the name implies, was found in May 2025 using the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System. It is a solar system comet that likely was formed in the Oort Cloud, which is a large group of icy bodies past the orbit of Neptune. There may be billions of comets like C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) there, which may orbit the sun at a distance for eons until a gravitational "kick" sends them towards the inner solar system.

These long-period comets are especially prized by astronomers studying the early solar system, since Oort Cloud members are more pristine than regular, recurring visitors like Halley's Comet originating closer to the sun.

Want to see these visitors from the outer solar system for yourself? Skywatchers hoping to capture their own views of distant solar system comets should check out our roundups of the best smart telescopes, cameras and lenses for astrophotography, along with our guide on how to view and photograph comets.

Editor's Note: If you would like to share your own comet photos with Space.com's readers, then please send your photo(s), comments, and your name and location to spacephotos@space.com.

It was 4 a.m. on Nov. 25 at the top of Hawaii's dormant Maunakea volcano. The process to view the comet took less time than expected.

On the main screen, the subject at hand, interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS was a small, fuzzy blob drifting through a crowded field of stars. On another, its light had been stretched into a barcode of rainbow lines, some brighter than others, each corresponding to a different gas boiling off the object's nucleus.

"This is some prime-time science happening in real-time right now," said Bryce Bolin, principal investigator of a study on the interstellar comet, as he greeted a global audience logged into the online skywatching session. The session was hosted by Shadow the Scientists, an organization that directly connects experts and non-experts through virtual seminars like this recent one, and the Gemini North Telescope, one half of the international Gemini Observatory.

What we were really watching on the control room's screen, though, wasn't just a comet. It was a time capsule: a chunk of ice and rock that may be older than the sun, now on its out of our solar system after accidentally passing by on its cosmic voyage through the universe. It even managed to get a close pass by our star, the sparkling orb it has spent most of its existence watching from afar.

And this wasn't the International Gemini Observatory's first date with 3I/ATLAS.

Back in August, while the comet was still diving toward the sun, Chile's Gemini South telescope, the other half of the international observatory, captured pre-perihelion spectra and images as its tail "switched on" and began to grow. Those data showed a distinctly comet-like object with a bright coma and jets of gas dominated by carbon dioxide and cyanogen — a contrast to the water-rich behavior seen in most solar system comets.

By late October, 3I/ATLAS had whipped through perihelion, or its closest spot to our solar system's sun, at about 130,000 miles per hour (roughly 209,000 kilometers per hour), then disappeared behind the sun from Earth's point of view. This journey was captured by many telescopes and spacecraft, from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to even the Perseverance rover. Unfortunately, though, with the Gemini Observatory being on Earth, it didn't catch the show.

But now, in November, I watched from my laptop as 3I/ATLAS climbed into northern skies as Hawaii's Gemini North Telescope took over.

"This is our first observation from Gemini since it reappeared behind the sun," explained scientist Brian Lemaux. "We're under active observations right now, which is what Shadow the Scientists is all about. this is not a show. We're actually trying to analyze and understand the data. The comet is very dynamic," he added. In other words, its brightness and spectral features had changed since the Gemini South run.

Before Gemini North ever pointed at 3I/ATLAS, we watched the calibration dance.

On screen, Lemaux showed a spectrum: bright, vertical lines corresponding to known elements used to nail down the wavelength scale to see the interstellar comet more accurately. "All these vertical lines are different chemical species of known origin that we can use to calibrate the observation," he said.

They followed that with flat fields — uniformly illuminated frames to correct for imperfections in the instrument — and a carefully chosen "solar analog" star. Because the comet mostly reflects sunlight, they needed to divide that sunlight out to isolate the comet's own emissions.

"The telescope optics are imperfect. The atmosphere is a problem from the ground. Our instruments, despite being very awesome, are not perfect either," Lemaux said. "We want to not care about any of that. We want to get to the intrinsic nature of any source that we observe."

Only once those pieces were in place did they move to the main act: a long-slit spectrum across the coma, followed by an integral field unit (IFU) observation — essentially a tiny 3D data cube giving a spectrum at every point in a small image of the comet.

Last time, at Gemini South, that combination of data delivered a surprise. "We saw this big plume of what turned out to be cyanogen gas," Bolin recalled, "and it extended out from the comet to very large scales."

Now, post-perihelion, the team was looking for how that structure had changed, how the aging of the coma after closest approach could show up in its chemistry and shape.

How old is 3I/ATLAS?

During a lull between exposures, someone in the webinar chat asked a deceptively simple question: How long does it take this comet to go around the galaxy?

"The galactic orbital period of 3I/ATLAS is about 250 million years," Bolin replied. (That's roughly the time it takes the sun to complete one lap around the Milky Way.) "It's probably not its first rodeo," he added. In extragalactic astronomy, he joked, 100 million years is considered "instantaneous" by experts.

That throwaway answer anchors a much deeper story about 3I/ATLAS's age.

Two groups of researchers tackled the problem by treating 3I/ATLAS the way we treat stars: comparing its velocity to the known relationship between age and random motion in the galaxy.

A study by scientists Aster Taylor of the University of Michigan and Darryl Seligman of Michigan State University calculated a "kinematic age" from 3I/ATLAS's excess speed of about 36 miles per second (58 kilometers per second) relative to the sun. Their result: the interstellar comet is likely 3 billion to 11 billion years old, assuming interstellar objects and stars follow the same age–velocity relation.

A different study by scientist Matthew Hopkins at the University of Oxford and colleagues, used a model that focused on the Milky Way's thick disk, a population of older, dynamically "hotter" stars, to infer a likely age of the interstellar comet at between about 7.6 billion and 14 billion years.

Both lines of evidence point the same way: 3I/ATLAS is almost certainly older than our 4.6-billion-year-old sun, and may be among the oldest comets we've ever seen.

In our seminar, Bolin later showed a visualization of 3I/ATLAS's orbit around the galaxy — no neat ellipse, but rather a looping, spiraling path distorted by encounters with gas clouds, spiral arms and dark matter.

"These aren't simple ellipses anymore," he said.

An asteroid around the sun has a closed elliptical orbit; an interstellar comet in the Milky Way doesn't. The galaxy's "very inhomogeneous clumps of matter," as Bolin described, constantly tug on the interstellar comet, making it nearly impossible to back-trace 3I/ATLAS to a specific parent star.

In other words, 3I/ATLAS has been wandering so long that it has lost its return address.

Imaging this ancient comet

As the Hawaiian sky crept toward dawn, the spectral work wound down. The Gemini North team cycled through four filters to look at the interstellar comet.

The comet brightened and faded slightly from image to image as different parts of its spectrum came into view.

"These images are not just pretty," Bolin emphasized. They're being used to pin down 3I/ATLAS's exact position on the sky with exquisite precision.

When the last images came in, Shadow the Scientists staffer Jameeka Marshall reminded the audience that all the data would be public immediately: "There's zero 'proprietary time' associated with the data … anybody that's interested can take these data, reduce the data and make them in a scientifically viable form using the tools that we have here at the Gemini Observatory."

Outside the control room, sunrise threatened the image quality. Inside, the comet on the screen looked unchanged: a fuzzy blot of light with a tail barely hinted at against the brightening sky.

Hidden in those frames and spectra is the biography of a traveler that has been aging in interstellar space since long before Earth formed; a relic from an early, metal-poor corner of the galaxy, briefly caught in our telescopes on its way past.

For a few hours on Maunakea — and for a few months in 2025 through 2026 as observatories worldwide tracked it — comet 3I/ATLAS has given us something astonishingly rare: a direct look at the debris of someone (or something) else's planetary system, eroded by billions of years.

But not erased.

Perched atop the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii, the Gemini North Observatory is one of the world's most powerful windows into the cosmos. On clear nights, long-exposure photographs taken show the streaks of stars above the high-altitude site, arcs of light created by Earth's rotation as distant stars trace graceful paths across the sky.

What is it?

The Gemini North Observatory is one-half of the international Gemini Observatory, paired with its southern twin in Chile. Over the decades, Gemini North has contributed to advancements in exoplanet imaging, black hole research and the study of the early universe.

Where is it?

Gemini North resides at Mauna Kea in Hawaii.

Why is it amazing?

Besides the journeys stars make across the night sky, this image also shows streaks from satellites, which are increasingly common. These streaks are more than aesthetic; they can also interfere with sensitive astronomical measurements. Astronomers worldwide are increasingly focused on the impact of satellite megaconstellations (for communications or Earth observation) on ground‐based observatories. As more satellites get launched into low Earth orbit, the challenges continue to mount, forcing experts to get creative when trying to get their measurements.

For astronomers using these telescopes, when looking up into the night sky, these streaks might just be the next hurdle — or the next breakthrough — when studying our cosmos.

Want to learn more?

You can learn more about ground-based observatories and satellite streaks.

As one half of the International Gemini Observatory, the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii provides astronomers with a window into the distant universe, from growing stars to evolving galaxies.

Its twin, Gemini South, is located in the Atacama Desert in Chile. Together, these telescopes form a powerful duo that allows astronomers to observe the entire sky from both hemispheres.

What is it?

In this long-exposure image, the lines of light in the night sky are caused by both stars and satellites moving across the heavens. Satellite streaks in particular are becoming a growing issue for telescopes like Gemini North and Gemini South, as they can affect the accuracy of measurements.

Where is it?

The Gemini North telescope is located on top of Mauna Kea in Hawaii.

Why is it amazing?

In recent years, the growing number of satellites in orbit has increased dramatically as private companies like SpaceX and Amazon launch large satellite constellations to deliver global broadband internet and other services. While these networks bring important technological advances, their presence also means more bright objects moving in the sky.

For observatories like Gemini North and Gemini South, this poses a serious issue. The reflected light from satellites can contaminate astronomical images, obscuring faint celestial objects or creating unwanted artifacts in valuable data. These disruptions make it harder to study phenomena like distant galaxies, near-Earth asteroids and the subtle signatures of exoplanet atmospheres.

To help mitigate this problem, the U.S. National Science Foundation's NOIRLab, which helps run both Gemini North and Gemini South, co-hosts the Center for the Protection of the Dark and Quiet Sky (CPS), a global collaboration that coordinates research and advocacy efforts to preserve our natural view of the cosmos.

Want to learn more?

You can learn more about satellite pollution and working to protect dark skies.

The Gemini North Telescope, one half of the International Gemini Observatory, studies the skies above Maunakea, a mountain in Hawaii. Its twin, the Gemini South Telescope, is based in the Chilean Andes at Cerro Pachón.

What is it?

According to NOIRLab, both Gemini Telescopes have four imagers and spectrographs that view in both optical and infrared wavelengths simultaneously, which are mounted on the back of the telescopes. These instruments work in sync with the telescopes' guidance systems in order to be able to look deep into the universe.

The Gemini North Telescope is one of several near the summit of Mauna Kea and it and its twin are two of only a select few observatories that can be operated fully remotely.

Where is it?

At 13,825 feet (4,214 meters) in altitude on a long-dormant volcano, the Gemini North Telescope is above clouds and light pollution that could interfere with its analysis.

Why is it amazing?

While the Gemini North Telescope may be at a high enough elevation to avoid light pollution, it has another issue that might interfere with its readings: satellite streaks. Because there are more satellites in low-Earth orbit than ever before, it can be challenging for astronomers to avoid them when pointing sensors towards the sky. In this image, the long exposure shows three satellites streaking across the sky to form a triangle shape.

Researchers are working to find ways to track these satellites in hopes of making it easier for astronomers to peer into our universe and study the many celestial objects that are there.

Want to learn more?

You can read more about the Gemini Observatory and satellite activity as astronomers continue to use powerful telescopes to look at our night skies.

While galaxies appear to be lonely wanderers in the vast universe, many in fact huddle closely in clusters, held together by their collective gravity. And sometimes, it would appear, they also munch on one another.

In other words, larger galaxies in these pockets merge with and gobble  smaller ones to grow even bigger — our own Milky Way galaxy actually cannibalized a small neighbor galaxy and gained supremacy about 10 billion years ago.

As for what happens to the smaller galaxies getting shredded by their massive counterparts? Well, while few disappear without a trace,, new research shows that some tiny galaxies are dense enough to power through. Those mighty realms are able to hold onto their cores and become what astronomers call Ultra Compact Dwarfs, or UCDs. 

Related: Dark energy camera reveals galaxies caught in a cosmic 'tug of war' (photo)

Using the Gemini North Telescope located near the Mauna Kea mountain in Hawaii, the team behind the research spotted galactic cannibalism in action near the Virgo Cluster, a large grouping of thousands of galaxies relatively nearby to Earth. And in a first, the researchers found small galaxy victims transitioning into UCDs. As many as 106 galaxies exhibited far-reaching envelopes of stars, suggesting their outer layers were being ripped apart by nearby large galaxies. Meanwhile, however, tight groupings of stars in their centers reveal their gravitational grip is strong enough to survive the merger, astronomers say.

After stars and gas in the galaxies' outer layers are pried out in full, astronomers expect the tiny galaxies will come to represent late-stage UCDs. 

"It's exciting that we can finally see this transformation in action," Eric Peng, an astronomer at National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory, said in a statement. "It tells us that many of these UCDs are visible fossil remnants of ancient dwarf galaxies in galaxy clusters, and our results suggest that there are likely many more low-mass remnants to be found."

Peng and his colleagues first spotted these candidate UCD progenitors in images taken by the Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope, also located near the summit of Hawaii's Mauna Kea mountain. However, in those images, it was very difficult to clearly distinguish the target galaxies from other faraway galaxies beyond the Virgo Cluster, according to the new study.

So, the team used Gemini North to perform follow up observations to accurately measure galaxy distances, then removed all background galaxies such that only the candidate UCDs within the Virgo Cluster could be seen.

The results showed these UCDs resided "almost exclusively near the largest galaxies," Kaixiang Wang, the study's lead author and a scientist at  Peking University in China, said in the statement. "We immediately knew that environmental transformation had to be important."

This research is described in a paper published Wednesday (Nov. 8) in the journal Nature.

A flurry of new images from ground and space telescopes is refining astronomers' ideas about the Milky Way's galactic neighbor Andromeda.

The images were taken with NASA's Spitzer and Chandra Space Telescopes and at the Gemini North Observatory on Mauna Kea, Hawaii.

The pictures reveal new details about Andromeda's central bulge and inner disk, while also peering into its very heart to uncover the source of mysterious pinpricks of light. Meanwhile, a mosaic made from thousands of individual images captures the total amount of infrared light emitted by the galaxy, allowing astronomers to calculate Andromeda's "weight" and determine how many stars form in the galaxy per year.

The new images were presented Monday at the 208th annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Calgary, Canada.

One hefty galaxy

Researchers stitched together more than 3,000 separate infrared images taken with Spitzer to create a series of mosaic images that tease apart the old stars in Andromeda from the thick veil of dust and gas that enshrouds the entire galaxy.

The image of the old stars looks like a smooth, soft blue smudge, while that of the dust and gas resembles concentric rings of fire.

Together, the images allow researchers to measure the total amount of infrared light being emitted by Andromeda: an amount equal to 4 billion suns.

The amount of light a star gives off depends on its mass, so researchers now estimate that the total mass of all the stars in Andromeda is equal to about 110 billion suns. Because most stars in the universe are small red dwarfs that are less massive than the sun, this translates to about a trillion stars.

This number is in agreement with past estimates; for comparison, the Milky Way is thought to contain some 400 billion stars.

"This is the first time the stellar population of Andromeda has been determined using the galaxy's infrared brightness," said Pauline Barmby, an astronomer at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) who helped analyze the Spitzer data.

The new data also allowed the team to calculate how many new stars are born in Andromeda each year. This number turned to be surprisingly low, only about 0.6 solar masses per year on average, Barmby told SPACE.com.

For comparison, the Milky Way was recently estimated to produce about half a dozen stars annually.

Stable for eons

Separate observations from a team led by Knut Olsen at the Gemini North Observatory in Hawaii are providing astronomers with the deepest and highest resolution images ever obtained of Andromeda's central bulge and inner disk in the near-infrared.

Many large galaxies, including are own, harbor a high concentration of stars in a bulge near the middle. Such a bulge typically extends well above and below the rotating outer planet of a galaxy.

The images show thousands of individual stars located within 6,500 light-years of the galaxy's nucleus. Crosschecking this information with other data, the team was able to conclude that most of these stars are relatively old and have heavy-element compositions similar to our Sun.

The new finding implies that Andromeda's inner disk has been around for at least 6 billion years, or nearly half the age of the universe, and that it might have existed relatively undisturbed for even longer.

Mysterious light sources revealed

New color-coded images taken by NASA's Chandra X-ray telescope gave astronomers an even deeper look into Andromeda's center.

The images show a collection of point-like sources embedded within a diffuse, X-ray emitting cloud of hot gas. Scientists think the gas is heated by shockwaves produced during supernova explosions.

Analysis of the X-ray data reveals the point sources are associated with binary star systems made up of either a neutron star or black hole that is siphoning matter away from the surface of a normal star. As the matter falls towards the neutron star or black hole, it is heated by friction to tens of millions of degrees until it emits X-rays.

Also known as Messier 31, Andromeda is our closest galactic neighbor, located only 2.5 million light-years away in the constellation Andromeda. At 260,000 light-years across, its disk is larger than the Milky Way's, which is about 100,000 light-years wide. Despite being bigger and containing more than twice as many stars, however, Andromeda is only about half as massive as our galaxy because it contains less dark matter.

• Image Gallery: The Andromeda Galaxy
• Exploring Andromeda
• Small Galaxy Punches Hole In Andromeda
• Mysterious X-Ray Objects Revealed in Andromeda Galaxy
• The New Tourist's Guide to the Milky Way