NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory Observations of Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS (C/2025 N1)
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2025
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| author | Chandler, Colin Orion Bernardinelli, Pedro H. Jurić, Mario Singh, Devanshi Hsieh, Henry H. Sullivan, Ian Jones, R. Lynne Kurlander, Jacob A. Vavilov, Dmitrii Eggl, Siegfried Holman, Matthew Spoto, Federica Schwamb, Megan E. MacArthur, Lauren A. Makadia, Rahil Micheli, Marco Heinze, Aren Christensen, Eric J. Beebe, Wilson Roodman, Aaron Lim, Kian-Tat Jenness, Tim Bosch, James Smart, Brianna M. Bellm, Eric MacBride, Sean Rawls, Meredith L. Greenstreet, Sarah Slater, Colin Ivezić, Željko Blum, Robert D. Connolly, Andrew Daues, Gregory Gower, Michelle Kalmbach, J. Bryce Bannister, Michele T. Dones, Luke Dorsey, Rosemary C. Farnocchia, Davide Fraser, Wesley C. Forbes, John C. Fuentes, Cesar Holt, Carrie E. Inno, Laura Jones, Geraint H. Knight, Matthew M. Lintott, Chris J. Lister, Tim Lupton, Robert Magbanua, Mark Jesus M. Malhotra, Renu Mueller, Beatrice E. A. Murtagh, Joseph Pandey, Nitya Reach, William T. Samarasinha, Nalin H. Seligman, Darryl Z. Snodgrass, Colin Solontoi, Michael Szabó, Gyula M. Vereš, Peter White, Ellie Womack, Maria Young, Leslie A. Allbery, Russ Anand, Shreya Armellin, Roberto Aubourg, Éric Avdellidou, Chrysa Azfar, Farrukh Bauer, James Bechtol, Keith Becker, Valerie Belyakov, Matthew Benecchi, Susan D. Bertini, Ivano Bodewits, Dennis Boeshaar, Patricia Bolin, Bryce T. Bose, Maitrayee Boucaud, Alexandre Boufleur, Rodrigo C. Boutigny, Dominique Bradshaw, Andrew Braga-Ribas, Felipe Bregeon, Johan Buchanan, Laura E. Calabrese, Daniel Camargo, J. I. B. Caplar, Neven Carlin, Jeffrey L. Carry, Benoit Carvajal, Juan Pablo Ceballo, Ross Chiang, Hsin-Fang Choi, Yumi Combet, Céline da Costa, Luiz Cowan, Preeti Crenshaw, John Franklin Croft, Steve Ćuk, Matija Daly, Philip N. D'Ammando, Filippo Daruich, Felipe Daubard, Guillaume Davenport, James R. A. Daylan, Tansu Delgado, Jennifer Deppe, Stephanie J. H. Devillepoix, Hadrien A. R. Doherty, Peter E. Donaldson, Abbie Drass, Holger Dubois-Felsmann, Gregory P. Economou, Frossie Eduardo, Marielle R. Elorriaga, Ioana Sotuela Englert, Anthony Fanning, Kevin Fedorets, Grigori Ferguson, Peter S. Fernandes, Maryann Benny Ferté, Agnès Fisher-Levine, Merlin Freytag, Mark L Frissell, Maxwell K. Fulle, Marco Gandhi, Poshak Gates, John Gerdes, David W. Gibbs, Alex R. Gillan, A. Fraser Orsini, Massimiliano Giordano Glanzman, T. Goodenow, Iain Gomes-Júnior, Altair Ramos Gorsuch, Miranda R. Granvik, Mikael Guan, Wen Guy, Leanne P. Hammergren, Mark Hanushevsky, Andrew Hernandez, Fabio Herrold, Ǎdis Hestroffer, Daniel Hoblitt, Joshua Hopkins, Matthew J. Ieva, Simone Ingraham, Patrick Irving, David H. Jannuzi, Buell T. Jee, M. James Jimenez, David Juramy, Claire Kahn, Steven M. Kang, Yijung Kannawadi, Arun Karavakis, Edward Kavelaars, JJ Kelkar, Kshitija Kelley, Michael S. P. Kelvin, Lee S. Kotov, Ivan Koumjian, Alec Kovács, Gábor Krughoff, K. Simon Kryszczyńska, Agnieszka Kubánek, Petr Lage, Craig Lange, Travis J. Léget, Pierre-François Guillou, Laurent Le Levine, Benjamin Levine, W. Garrett Zhuofu Li Liang, Shuang Licandro, Javier Lin, Hsing Wen Lisse, Carey Lust, Nate B. Lyttle, Ryan R. Mahabal, Ashish A. Mahlke, Max Mainetti, Gabriele Mandelbaum, Rachel Margheim, Steven J. Margoti, Giuliano Marshall, Phil Marčeta, Dušan Homar, Guillem Megias Melita, Mario D. Menanteau, Felipe Meyers, Joshua Mills, Dave Moniez, Marc Marín, C. A. L. Morales Morato, Naomi More, Surhud Morrison, Christopher B. Mortensen, Kris Moulane, Youssef Mrakovčić, Karlo Mueller, Fritz Muñoz-Gutiérrez, Marco A. Neal, Homer Newcomer, F. M. Nourbakhsh, Erfan O'Connor, Paul Oldag, Drew Oldroyd, William J. O'Mullane, William Opitom, Cyrielle Oszkiewicz, Dagmara Page, Gary L. Patterson, Jack Patterson, Maria T Payne, Matthew J. Pedersen, Eske M. Peloton, Julien Pereira, Chrystian Luciano Peterson, John R. Pietrowicz, Stephen R. Malagón, Andrés A. Plazas Podlewska-Gaca, Edyta Polin, Daniel Polen, Rebekah Pollek, Hannah Mary Margaret Qiu, Yongqiang Quint, Bruno Rabus, Markus Ragozzine, Darin Rajagopal, Jayadev Ranabhat, Arianna Reil, Kevin Ribeiro, Tiago Rice, Malena Ridgway, Stephen T. Ritz, Steven M. Rivkin, Andrew S. Robinson, James E. Rożek, Agata Rykoff, Eli Manzano, Luis E. Salazar Salnikov, Andrei Sánchez, Bruno O. Sanmartim, David Sarid, Gal Schambeau, Charles A. Schindler, Rafe H. Schmidt, Samuel J. Schumacher, German Schutt, Theo Scolnic, Daniel Seaman, Robert Sebag, Jacques Sedaghat, Nima Seron, Jacqueline Shaw, Richard A. Shugart, Alysha Sick, Jonathan Singhal, Jaladh Siraj, Amir Sitarz, Michael C. Sobhani, Shahram Soldahl, Christine Spencer, Dallin Stalder, Brian Stetzler, Steven Strauss, Alan Stubbs, Christopher W. Suberlak, Krzysztof L. Snyder, Adam Swinbank, John D. Szigeti, László Tauraso, Michael Taranu, Dan S. Thayer, John Gregg Thomas, Sandrine Thornton, Adam Tonietti, Luca Cipriano, Laura Toribio San Trilling, David E. Trujillo, Chadwick A. Tsai, Te-Wei Tucker, Douglas L. Turri, Max Tyson, Tony Urbach, Elana K. van Reeven, Wouter Villarreal, Antonia Sierra Voutsinas, Stelios Walter, Christopher W. Yuankun Wang Ward, Charlotte Warner, Michael West, Maxine Wong, Ian Wood-Vasey, W. M. Whittaker, Emerson Yang, Bin Ye, Quanzhi Yoachim, Peter Sanchez, R. Zanmar Zhang, Jinshuo Zhou, Conghao |
| author_facet | Chandler, Colin Orion Bernardinelli, Pedro H. Jurić, Mario Singh, Devanshi Hsieh, Henry H. Sullivan, Ian Jones, R. Lynne Kurlander, Jacob A. Vavilov, Dmitrii Eggl, Siegfried Holman, Matthew Spoto, Federica Schwamb, Megan E. MacArthur, Lauren A. Makadia, Rahil Micheli, Marco Heinze, Aren Christensen, Eric J. Beebe, Wilson Roodman, Aaron Lim, Kian-Tat Jenness, Tim Bosch, James Smart, Brianna M. Bellm, Eric MacBride, Sean Rawls, Meredith L. Greenstreet, Sarah Slater, Colin Ivezić, Željko Blum, Robert D. Connolly, Andrew Daues, Gregory Gower, Michelle Kalmbach, J. Bryce Bannister, Michele T. Dones, Luke Dorsey, Rosemary C. Farnocchia, Davide Fraser, Wesley C. Forbes, John C. Fuentes, Cesar Holt, Carrie E. Inno, Laura Jones, Geraint H. Knight, Matthew M. Lintott, Chris J. Lister, Tim Lupton, Robert Magbanua, Mark Jesus M. Malhotra, Renu Mueller, Beatrice E. A. Murtagh, Joseph Pandey, Nitya Reach, William T. Samarasinha, Nalin H. Seligman, Darryl Z. Snodgrass, Colin Solontoi, Michael Szabó, Gyula M. Vereš, Peter White, Ellie Womack, Maria Young, Leslie A. Allbery, Russ Anand, Shreya Armellin, Roberto Aubourg, Éric Avdellidou, Chrysa Azfar, Farrukh Bauer, James Bechtol, Keith Becker, Valerie Belyakov, Matthew Benecchi, Susan D. Bertini, Ivano Bodewits, Dennis Boeshaar, Patricia Bolin, Bryce T. Bose, Maitrayee Boucaud, Alexandre Boufleur, Rodrigo C. Boutigny, Dominique Bradshaw, Andrew Braga-Ribas, Felipe Bregeon, Johan Buchanan, Laura E. Calabrese, Daniel Camargo, J. I. B. Caplar, Neven Carlin, Jeffrey L. Carry, Benoit Carvajal, Juan Pablo Ceballo, Ross Chiang, Hsin-Fang Choi, Yumi Combet, Céline da Costa, Luiz Cowan, Preeti Crenshaw, John Franklin Croft, Steve Ćuk, Matija Daly, Philip N. D'Ammando, Filippo Daruich, Felipe Daubard, Guillaume Davenport, James R. A. Daylan, Tansu Delgado, Jennifer Deppe, Stephanie J. H. Devillepoix, Hadrien A. R. Doherty, Peter E. Donaldson, Abbie Drass, Holger Dubois-Felsmann, Gregory P. Economou, Frossie Eduardo, Marielle R. Elorriaga, Ioana Sotuela Englert, Anthony Fanning, Kevin Fedorets, Grigori Ferguson, Peter S. Fernandes, Maryann Benny Ferté, Agnès Fisher-Levine, Merlin Freytag, Mark L Frissell, Maxwell K. Fulle, Marco Gandhi, Poshak Gates, John Gerdes, David W. Gibbs, Alex R. Gillan, A. Fraser Orsini, Massimiliano Giordano Glanzman, T. Goodenow, Iain Gomes-Júnior, Altair Ramos Gorsuch, Miranda R. Granvik, Mikael Guan, Wen Guy, Leanne P. Hammergren, Mark Hanushevsky, Andrew Hernandez, Fabio Herrold, Ǎdis Hestroffer, Daniel Hoblitt, Joshua Hopkins, Matthew J. Ieva, Simone Ingraham, Patrick Irving, David H. Jannuzi, Buell T. Jee, M. James Jimenez, David Juramy, Claire Kahn, Steven M. Kang, Yijung Kannawadi, Arun Karavakis, Edward Kavelaars, JJ Kelkar, Kshitija Kelley, Michael S. P. Kelvin, Lee S. Kotov, Ivan Koumjian, Alec Kovács, Gábor Krughoff, K. Simon Kryszczyńska, Agnieszka Kubánek, Petr Lage, Craig Lange, Travis J. Léget, Pierre-François Guillou, Laurent Le Levine, Benjamin Levine, W. Garrett Zhuofu Li Liang, Shuang Licandro, Javier Lin, Hsing Wen Lisse, Carey Lust, Nate B. Lyttle, Ryan R. Mahabal, Ashish A. Mahlke, Max Mainetti, Gabriele Mandelbaum, Rachel Margheim, Steven J. Margoti, Giuliano Marshall, Phil Marčeta, Dušan Homar, Guillem Megias Melita, Mario D. Menanteau, Felipe Meyers, Joshua Mills, Dave Moniez, Marc Marín, C. A. L. Morales Morato, Naomi More, Surhud Morrison, Christopher B. Mortensen, Kris Moulane, Youssef Mrakovčić, Karlo Mueller, Fritz Muñoz-Gutiérrez, Marco A. Neal, Homer Newcomer, F. M. Nourbakhsh, Erfan O'Connor, Paul Oldag, Drew Oldroyd, William J. O'Mullane, William Opitom, Cyrielle Oszkiewicz, Dagmara Page, Gary L. Patterson, Jack Patterson, Maria T Payne, Matthew J. Pedersen, Eske M. Peloton, Julien Pereira, Chrystian Luciano Peterson, John R. Pietrowicz, Stephen R. Malagón, Andrés A. Plazas Podlewska-Gaca, Edyta Polin, Daniel Polen, Rebekah Pollek, Hannah Mary Margaret Qiu, Yongqiang Quint, Bruno Rabus, Markus Ragozzine, Darin Rajagopal, Jayadev Ranabhat, Arianna Reil, Kevin Ribeiro, Tiago Rice, Malena Ridgway, Stephen T. Ritz, Steven M. Rivkin, Andrew S. Robinson, James E. Rożek, Agata Rykoff, Eli Manzano, Luis E. Salazar Salnikov, Andrei Sánchez, Bruno O. Sanmartim, David Sarid, Gal Schambeau, Charles A. Schindler, Rafe H. Schmidt, Samuel J. Schumacher, German Schutt, Theo Scolnic, Daniel Seaman, Robert Sebag, Jacques Sedaghat, Nima Seron, Jacqueline Shaw, Richard A. Shugart, Alysha Sick, Jonathan Singhal, Jaladh Siraj, Amir Sitarz, Michael C. Sobhani, Shahram Soldahl, Christine Spencer, Dallin Stalder, Brian Stetzler, Steven Strauss, Alan Stubbs, Christopher W. Suberlak, Krzysztof L. Snyder, Adam Swinbank, John D. Szigeti, László Tauraso, Michael Taranu, Dan S. Thayer, John Gregg Thomas, Sandrine Thornton, Adam Tonietti, Luca Cipriano, Laura Toribio San Trilling, David E. Trujillo, Chadwick A. Tsai, Te-Wei Tucker, Douglas L. Turri, Max Tyson, Tony Urbach, Elana K. van Reeven, Wouter Villarreal, Antonia Sierra Voutsinas, Stelios Walter, Christopher W. Yuankun Wang Ward, Charlotte Warner, Michael West, Maxine Wong, Ian Wood-Vasey, W. M. Whittaker, Emerson Yang, Bin Ye, Quanzhi Yoachim, Peter Sanchez, R. Zanmar Zhang, Jinshuo Zhou, Conghao |
| contents | We report on the observation and measurement of astrometry, photometry, morphology, and activityof the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS, also designated C/2025 N1 (ATLAS) with the NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory. Comet 3I/ATLAS, the third known interstellar object, was discovered on UT 2025 July 1. Rubin Observatory had coincidentally collected images of the object's region of the sky during routine commissioning. Facilitated by Rubin's high resolution and large aperture, we successfully recovered object detections from Rubin observations spanning UT 2025 June 21 (10 days before discovery, when 3I/ATLAS was 4.5 au from the Sun) through the date of discovery, and we acquired additional images through UT 2025 July 20 as part of commissioning. We measure on-sky locations of 3I/ATLAS in Rubin ugrizy bands, with a typical precision of about 70 mas, and briefly describe the reason this is coarser than our measured static source astrometric precision of about 3 mas in Rubin images. We measure grizy magnitudes of 3I/ATLAS photometry at about 0.01 mag precision, detecting no short-term photometric variability above 0.01 mag. We derive an estimated near-nucleus dust-to-nucleus scattering cross-section ratio of eta >= 13 on UT 2025 July 2 based on Rubin photometry and an upper limit nucleus size computed from Hubble Space Telescope observations. We find Rubin colors of g - r = (0.657 +/- 0.013) mag, r - i = (0.235 +/- 0.018) mag, i - z = (0.147 +/- 0.042) mag, z - y = (0.047 +/- 0.052) mag. These data represent the earliest observations of this object by a large (>=8-meter class) telescope and illustrate the type of measurements (and discoveries) Rubin's Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) will begin to provide after it begins in early 2026. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_13409 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory Observations of Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS (C/2025 N1) Chandler, Colin Orion Bernardinelli, Pedro H. Jurić, Mario Singh, Devanshi Hsieh, Henry H. Sullivan, Ian Jones, R. Lynne Kurlander, Jacob A. Vavilov, Dmitrii Eggl, Siegfried Holman, Matthew Spoto, Federica Schwamb, Megan E. MacArthur, Lauren A. Makadia, Rahil Micheli, Marco Heinze, Aren Christensen, Eric J. Beebe, Wilson Roodman, Aaron Lim, Kian-Tat Jenness, Tim Bosch, James Smart, Brianna M. Bellm, Eric MacBride, Sean Rawls, Meredith L. Greenstreet, Sarah Slater, Colin Ivezić, Željko Blum, Robert D. Connolly, Andrew Daues, Gregory Gower, Michelle Kalmbach, J. Bryce Bannister, Michele T. Dones, Luke Dorsey, Rosemary C. Farnocchia, Davide Fraser, Wesley C. Forbes, John C. Fuentes, Cesar Holt, Carrie E. Inno, Laura Jones, Geraint H. Knight, Matthew M. Lintott, Chris J. Lister, Tim Lupton, Robert Magbanua, Mark Jesus M. Malhotra, Renu Mueller, Beatrice E. A. Murtagh, Joseph Pandey, Nitya Reach, William T. Samarasinha, Nalin H. Seligman, Darryl Z. Snodgrass, Colin Solontoi, Michael Szabó, Gyula M. Vereš, Peter White, Ellie Womack, Maria Young, Leslie A. Allbery, Russ Anand, Shreya Armellin, Roberto Aubourg, Éric Avdellidou, Chrysa Azfar, Farrukh Bauer, James Bechtol, Keith Becker, Valerie Belyakov, Matthew Benecchi, Susan D. Bertini, Ivano Bodewits, Dennis Boeshaar, Patricia Bolin, Bryce T. Bose, Maitrayee Boucaud, Alexandre Boufleur, Rodrigo C. Boutigny, Dominique Bradshaw, Andrew Braga-Ribas, Felipe Bregeon, Johan Buchanan, Laura E. Calabrese, Daniel Camargo, J. I. B. Caplar, Neven Carlin, Jeffrey L. Carry, Benoit Carvajal, Juan Pablo Ceballo, Ross Chiang, Hsin-Fang Choi, Yumi Combet, Céline da Costa, Luiz Cowan, Preeti Crenshaw, John Franklin Croft, Steve Ćuk, Matija Daly, Philip N. D'Ammando, Filippo Daruich, Felipe Daubard, Guillaume Davenport, James R. A. Daylan, Tansu Delgado, Jennifer Deppe, Stephanie J. H. Devillepoix, Hadrien A. R. Doherty, Peter E. Donaldson, Abbie Drass, Holger Dubois-Felsmann, Gregory P. Economou, Frossie Eduardo, Marielle R. Elorriaga, Ioana Sotuela Englert, Anthony Fanning, Kevin Fedorets, Grigori Ferguson, Peter S. Fernandes, Maryann Benny Ferté, Agnès Fisher-Levine, Merlin Freytag, Mark L Frissell, Maxwell K. Fulle, Marco Gandhi, Poshak Gates, John Gerdes, David W. Gibbs, Alex R. Gillan, A. Fraser Orsini, Massimiliano Giordano Glanzman, T. Goodenow, Iain Gomes-Júnior, Altair Ramos Gorsuch, Miranda R. Granvik, Mikael Guan, Wen Guy, Leanne P. Hammergren, Mark Hanushevsky, Andrew Hernandez, Fabio Herrold, Ǎdis Hestroffer, Daniel Hoblitt, Joshua Hopkins, Matthew J. Ieva, Simone Ingraham, Patrick Irving, David H. Jannuzi, Buell T. Jee, M. James Jimenez, David Juramy, Claire Kahn, Steven M. Kang, Yijung Kannawadi, Arun Karavakis, Edward Kavelaars, JJ Kelkar, Kshitija Kelley, Michael S. P. Kelvin, Lee S. Kotov, Ivan Koumjian, Alec Kovács, Gábor Krughoff, K. Simon Kryszczyńska, Agnieszka Kubánek, Petr Lage, Craig Lange, Travis J. Léget, Pierre-François Guillou, Laurent Le Levine, Benjamin Levine, W. Garrett Zhuofu Li Liang, Shuang Licandro, Javier Lin, Hsing Wen Lisse, Carey Lust, Nate B. Lyttle, Ryan R. Mahabal, Ashish A. Mahlke, Max Mainetti, Gabriele Mandelbaum, Rachel Margheim, Steven J. Margoti, Giuliano Marshall, Phil Marčeta, Dušan Homar, Guillem Megias Melita, Mario D. Menanteau, Felipe Meyers, Joshua Mills, Dave Moniez, Marc Marín, C. A. L. Morales Morato, Naomi More, Surhud Morrison, Christopher B. Mortensen, Kris Moulane, Youssef Mrakovčić, Karlo Mueller, Fritz Muñoz-Gutiérrez, Marco A. Neal, Homer Newcomer, F. M. Nourbakhsh, Erfan O'Connor, Paul Oldag, Drew Oldroyd, William J. O'Mullane, William Opitom, Cyrielle Oszkiewicz, Dagmara Page, Gary L. Patterson, Jack Patterson, Maria T Payne, Matthew J. Pedersen, Eske M. Peloton, Julien Pereira, Chrystian Luciano Peterson, John R. Pietrowicz, Stephen R. Malagón, Andrés A. Plazas Podlewska-Gaca, Edyta Polin, Daniel Polen, Rebekah Pollek, Hannah Mary Margaret Qiu, Yongqiang Quint, Bruno Rabus, Markus Ragozzine, Darin Rajagopal, Jayadev Ranabhat, Arianna Reil, Kevin Ribeiro, Tiago Rice, Malena Ridgway, Stephen T. Ritz, Steven M. Rivkin, Andrew S. Robinson, James E. Rożek, Agata Rykoff, Eli Manzano, Luis E. Salazar Salnikov, Andrei Sánchez, Bruno O. Sanmartim, David Sarid, Gal Schambeau, Charles A. Schindler, Rafe H. Schmidt, Samuel J. Schumacher, German Schutt, Theo Scolnic, Daniel Seaman, Robert Sebag, Jacques Sedaghat, Nima Seron, Jacqueline Shaw, Richard A. Shugart, Alysha Sick, Jonathan Singhal, Jaladh Siraj, Amir Sitarz, Michael C. Sobhani, Shahram Soldahl, Christine Spencer, Dallin Stalder, Brian Stetzler, Steven Strauss, Alan Stubbs, Christopher W. Suberlak, Krzysztof L. Snyder, Adam Swinbank, John D. Szigeti, László Tauraso, Michael Taranu, Dan S. Thayer, John Gregg Thomas, Sandrine Thornton, Adam Tonietti, Luca Cipriano, Laura Toribio San Trilling, David E. Trujillo, Chadwick A. Tsai, Te-Wei Tucker, Douglas L. Turri, Max Tyson, Tony Urbach, Elana K. van Reeven, Wouter Villarreal, Antonia Sierra Voutsinas, Stelios Walter, Christopher W. Yuankun Wang Ward, Charlotte Warner, Michael West, Maxine Wong, Ian Wood-Vasey, W. M. Whittaker, Emerson Yang, Bin Ye, Quanzhi Yoachim, Peter Sanchez, R. Zanmar Zhang, Jinshuo Zhou, Conghao Earth and Planetary Astrophysics Astrophysics of Galaxies We report on the observation and measurement of astrometry, photometry, morphology, and activityof the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS, also designated C/2025 N1 (ATLAS) with the NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory. Comet 3I/ATLAS, the third known interstellar object, was discovered on UT 2025 July 1. Rubin Observatory had coincidentally collected images of the object's region of the sky during routine commissioning. Facilitated by Rubin's high resolution and large aperture, we successfully recovered object detections from Rubin observations spanning UT 2025 June 21 (10 days before discovery, when 3I/ATLAS was 4.5 au from the Sun) through the date of discovery, and we acquired additional images through UT 2025 July 20 as part of commissioning. We measure on-sky locations of 3I/ATLAS in Rubin ugrizy bands, with a typical precision of about 70 mas, and briefly describe the reason this is coarser than our measured static source astrometric precision of about 3 mas in Rubin images. We measure grizy magnitudes of 3I/ATLAS photometry at about 0.01 mag precision, detecting no short-term photometric variability above 0.01 mag. We derive an estimated near-nucleus dust-to-nucleus scattering cross-section ratio of eta >= 13 on UT 2025 July 2 based on Rubin photometry and an upper limit nucleus size computed from Hubble Space Telescope observations. We find Rubin colors of g - r = (0.657 +/- 0.013) mag, r - i = (0.235 +/- 0.018) mag, i - z = (0.147 +/- 0.042) mag, z - y = (0.047 +/- 0.052) mag. These data represent the earliest observations of this object by a large (>=8-meter class) telescope and illustrate the type of measurements (and discoveries) Rubin's Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) will begin to provide after it begins in early 2026. |
| title | NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory Observations of Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS (C/2025 N1) |
| topic | Earth and Planetary Astrophysics Astrophysics of Galaxies |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.13409 |