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A mystery interstellar object discovered last week is likely to be the oldest comet ever seen—possibly predating our solar system by more than 3 billion years, researchers say.

The "water ice-rich" visitor, named 3I/ATLAS, is only the third known object from beyond our solar system ever spotted in our cosmic neighborhood and the first to reach us from a completely different region of our Milky Way galaxy.

It could be more than 7 billion years old.

Unlike the previous two objects to enter our solar system from elsewhere in the cosmos, 3I/ATLAS appears to be traveling on a steep path through the galaxy, with a trajectory that suggests it originated from the Milky Way's "thick disk"—a population of ancient stars orbiting above and below the thin plane where the sun and most stars reside.