CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A wandering comet from another star passes by Earth this week in a final sighting before returning to interstellar space.

Discovered over the summer, the comet known as 3I/Atlas will pass within 269 million kilometers (167 million miles) of our planet on Friday, the closest it will reach on its long journey through the system solar.

NASA continues to point its space telescopes at the visiting ice ball, which is estimated to be between 440 meters (1,444 feet) and 5.6 kilometers (3.5 miles) in size. But it's fading as it moves away, so now is the time for amateur astronomers to capture it in the night sky with their telescopes.

The comet will get much closer to Jupiter in March, passing within 53 million kilometers (33 million miles). It will be in the mid-2030s when it reaches interstellar space, never to return, said Paul Chodas, director of NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies.

It is the third known interstellar object to pass through our solar system. Interstellar comets like 3I/Atlas originate in star systems elsewhere in the Milky Way, and indigenous comets like Halley come from the icy edges of our solar system.

A telescope in Hawaii discovered the first confirmed interstellar visitor in 2017. Two years later, an interstellar comet was spotted by an amateur astronomer from Crimea. NASA's Atlas telescope in Chile detected comet 3I/Atlas in July while searching for potentially dangerous asteroids.

Scientists believe that the latest intruder comet, also harmless, may have originated in a star system much older than our own, making it a tempting target.

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This story was translated from English by an AP editor with the help of a generative artificial intelligence tool.