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We're very excited to be studying the very first Interstellar comet

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that has ever been discovered and it's very exciting that Hubble's in position to

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conduct some very important observations of it.

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Hi, my name is Max Mutchler. I'm a scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute.

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And I work on solar system observations

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using the Hubble Space Telescope.

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Hubble's been studying comets throughout its mission, over 30 years. It's particularly well-suited, actually, to

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studying small solar system objects because it has such exquisite

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resolution and sensitivity

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and the source of all the activity in comets is a tiny nucleus that's hard to see and so Hubble gives us a really good

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chance to understand what's happening there.

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And this comet is unique because every other comet we've been studying with Hubble has been a part of our solar system,

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orbiting the Sun.

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This is the first one that we know isn't orbiting the Sun. It's coming from outside of our solar system and it's just passing through.

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And so we really want to study it to learn ...

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Is it like the comets that we're familiar with or is it totally different?

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And it's going to tell us something about

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what's going on in other solar systems, other star systems around our galaxy.

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This is really what you get into to science for, it's for moments like this. You're ready. Your team is ready. Hubble is

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ready.

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And these type of things happen at random moments and so you have to be ready when opportunity knocks.

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And so it's very exciting to be part of a team

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that can pounce when something like this happens and know that we're getting the best data we can possibly get from Hubble.

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And we're not going to miss this opportunity to learn whatever we can from this object that's just whizzing along and is

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going to be gone before we know it.