Astronomers have discovered a previously unknown comet about 1.3 billion kilometers from Earth, spotted by an observatory designed to study distant galaxies, infohub.kz reports.
According to SciTechDaily, the European Space Agency's Euclid space telescope captured the object during routine sky surveys in September 2026. It has been officially designated C/2026 S1 (Euclid). The comet follows an elongated orbit with a period of several thousand years and currently sits high above the plane in which most planets of the Solar System orbit. Its distance from Earth is comparable to the space between the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn.
The accidental find came as a surprise to researchers. The telescope's program deliberately avoids patches of sky containing dust and small Solar System bodies so that sunlight does not interfere with deep-space observations. Mikko Pöntinen, a researcher at the University of Helsinki, spotted the comet thanks to a dedicated program. An algorithm flagged the trail of a fast-moving object across several images, and a diffuse cloud of gas and dust around the nucleus confirmed cometary activity.
After cross-checking against existing catalogs, the data were sent to the Minor Planet Center of the International Astronomical Union. Ground-based observatories confirmed the discovery in October 2026. The scientists stressed that the find allowed them to test the detection and rapid notification of distant icy bodies for future research space missions.