November 19, 2025
2 min learn
NASA’s Newest Pictures Deliver Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS Into View
NASA spacecraft throughout the internal photo voltaic system captured new views of Comet 3I/ATLAS—the third recognized interstellar object
This film reveals Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH) observations of Comet 3I/ATLAS from September 28 to October 10, 2025, when the comet was between 231 million to 235 million miles from Earth. Every body is a every day stacked picture, made up of a number of observations taken of the comet on every day. Stars create streaks of sunshine within the background because the comet strikes throughout the sky. The intense object that seems close to the comet in a few frames is the planet Mars.
NASA/Southwest Analysis Institute
NASA simply dropped a trove of latest photographs of interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS, as seen by a number of the house company’s spacecraft.
The discharge comes after NASA scientists and engineers waited by the six-week authorities shutdown to see whether or not spacecraft stationed throughout the internal photo voltaic system would catch sight of Comet 3I/ATLAS, an illustrious and intriguing object that’s solely the third recognized interloper from past our personal photo voltaic system.
Right this moment’s reveal confirmed what the company was in a position to accomplish anyway throughout these prime remark alternatives.
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This picture reveals the halo of gasoline and dirt, or coma, surrounding comet 3I/ATLAS, the third interstellar object ever detected by astronomers because it passes by our photo voltaic system. It was taken on October 9, 2025, by an instrument onboard NASA’s Mars Ambiance and Unstable Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft, which has been learning Mars from its orbit since 2014. The instrument, the Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph, takes photos within the ultraviolet a part of the spectrum to disclose the chemical composition of objects. The middle of the picture has the brightest pixel, indicating the place the comet is. The subsequent brightest shades within the picture point out areas the place the instrument detected atoms of hydrogen coming from the comet. This hydrogen is launched when daylight heats the comet, inflicting its water ice to show straight into vapor. As soon as launched into house, the water molecules break aside into oxygen and hydrogen atoms.
NASA/Goddard/LASP/CU Boulder
The brand new photographs come from a variety of NASA missions, together with planetary science missions such because the Perseverance Mars rover and the Mars Ambiance and Unstable Evolution (MAVEN) orbiter, in addition to the asteroid missions Psyche and Lucy and the sun-studying spacecraft Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH).
“We’re so glad to have our unimaginable fleet of NASA science spacecraft all throughout the photo voltaic system,” mentioned Nicky Fox, affiliate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. “Boy, had been they prepared for this occasion.”
READ MORE: The Race to Research an Interstellar Comet from Deep House
Scientists first detected 3I/ATLAS on July 1 utilizing a telescope known as Asteroid Terrestrial-Impression Final Alert System (ATLAS) based mostly in Chile. The mix of the comet’s exceptional pace—it was zipping by the photo voltaic system at 137,000 miles per hour—and its uncommon trajectory recommended that 3I/ATLAS was not from our celestial neighborhood.
Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS is seen as a faint smudge in opposition to a background star area in two photographs taken by the Mastcam-Z instrument aboard NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover on October 4, 2025. On the time it was imaged, the comet was about 18.6 million miles from the rover, which was exploring the rim of the Crimson Planet’s Jezero Crater.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS
That made the comet solely the third confirmed interstellar object—following 1I/‘Oumuamua, found in 2017, and Comet 2I/Borisov, found in 2019. Restricted by these temporary visits, astronomers have hustled to collect as many observations of the Comet 3I/ATLAS as doable. To take action, they’ve recruited devices on Earth, in orbit and even farther afield.
“Every one among these has been particular and valuable, and all people drops every thing to take a look at them,” mentioned Karen Meech, a planetary astronomer on the College of Hawaii, in an interview with Scientific American in October.
Previous observations have revealed that the comet is unusually wealthy in carbon dioxide and that this materials seems to have been buried beneath the item’s floor. That implies Comet 3I/ATLAS fashioned in a a lot colder location, farther from its star, than our personal photo voltaic system’s comets did, and that if possible had been warmed by its personal or one other star earlier than its go to to our photo voltaic system.
Scientists are nonetheless digging into every thing the newly launched observations present. Concurrently, the hunt to catch sight of Comet 3I/ATLAS continues—the James Webb House Telescope, notably, will try further observations in December, NASA officers famous at present. That instrument will possible be the ultimate NASA mission in a position to see the comet on its path out of the photo voltaic system.
“I’m excited to see what new issues we find out about our pleasant photo voltaic system customer within the days and actually the years to come back,” Fox mentioned.
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