Interstellar Comet Captured by Jupiter Probe
A spacecraft en route to Jupiter captured images of the mysterious interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS speeding through our solar system. Its trajectory and composition are under study, offering valuable data for understanding rare interstellar objects that visit from beyond our solar neighborhood.
This visitor is the third of its kind ever detected, following the discoveries of 'Oumuamua in 2017 and 2I/Borisov in 2019. Designated 3I/ATLAS, it was first spotted on July 1, 2025, by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) in Chile. Its high velocity and hyperbolic trajectory confirmed it originated from outside our solar system. The spacecraft that captured the recent images is the European Space Agency's Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE). Though its primary mission is to study Jupiter and its moons, it used its JANUS camera and four other instruments to observe 3I/ATLAS in November 2025. The full dataset from JUICE is expected to arrive on Earth for analysis by late March 2026. Observations by the James Webb Space Telescope have provided a glimpse into the comet's composition, revealing it to be unusually rich in carbon dioxide. It also contains water ice, carbon monoxide, and cyanide gas. Curiously, scientists have detected atomic nickel vapor but an absence of the typically associated iron vapor. Traveling at speeds up to 153,000 miles per hour (246,000 kilometers per hour) at its closest approach to the Sun, 3I/ATLAS is moving too fast to be captured by our sun's gravity. It made its closest pass to Earth on December 19, 2025, at a safe distance of about 170 million miles (270 million kilometers). The comet is now on a path to exit our solar system and continue its journey through interstellar space.
