The newly discovered interstellar visitor is just the third of its kind and fascinates astronomers who hope to learn from it about galaxies far, far away.

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.

NASA has discovered the third known interstellar object to pass through our solar system, but the icy snowball object poses no threat to Earth.