Amid a press occasion in November 2025, NASA discharged a suite of unused pictures of 3I/ATLAS taken by shuttle over the inward sun based framework. That incorporates the Damages Observation Orbiter (MRO), the MAVEN orbiter around Defaces, the Diligence meanderer on Damages, and indeed heliophysics missions — a to begin with for an interstellar question.
NASA Fly Drive Research facility (JPL)
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The MRO’s high‑resolution camera imaged 3I/ATLAS on Oct. 2, 2025, when it was simply around 18.6 million miles (≈ 30 million km) from the shuttle — the closest we’ve ever come to seeing such an interstellar body up‑close.
NASA Fly Impetus Research facility (JPL)
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Based on this modern symbolism, organization researchers underscored: “It looks and carries on like a comet.” There were no signs of “technosignatures” — i.e. nothing to propose it’s an outsider shuttle. It shows the commonplace trademarks of cometary action: a core, a encompassing cloud of gas and clean (coma), and a tail.
Space
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The reality that so numerous distinctive shuttle and telescopes — counting planetary and heliophysics missions — captured perceptions implies researchers presently have different viewpoints and wavelengths to ponder 3I/ATLAS, enhancing information quality and making a difference paint a more total picture of this uncommon interstellar guest.
NASA Science
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Space
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Why this things: Since 3I/ATLAS is as it were the third affirmed interstellar question ever found, these multi‑angle, multi-instrument perceptions offer a once-in-a-generation chance to see how comets from other star frameworks carry on — when they pass through our sun powered system.
2. Its composition is strikingly distinctive — particularly a coma wealthy in carbon dioxide (CO₂)
Observations by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) utilized infrared spectroscopy to test the gas encompassing 3I/ATLAS. The information uncover that its coma is ruled by CO₂, not water (H₂O), which is profoundly unordinary compared with most comets born in our sun powered framework.
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Alongside CO₂, the coma too contains tidy, water ice, and other atoms (CO, OCS), but the proportion of CO₂ to H₂O is distant higher than regularly seen.
arXiv
This recommends the comet’s core likely shaped in a exceptionally diverse environment — maybe around a star with a distinctive protoplanetary disk chemistry, or beneath more seriously radiation that protected more unstable frosts like CO₂. JWST analysts famous that 3I/ATLAS may hold “ices uncovered to higher levels of radiation than Sun oriented Framework comets.”
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Why this things: The bizarre composition suggests that planetesimals (comet‑like bodies) in other star frameworks can have exceptionally distinctive chemical makeups — and in this way considering 3I/ATLAS gives space experts a coordinate window into how frigid bodies shape somewhere else in the galaxy.
3. The comet’s estimate — and dust/gas movement — are substantial
Using perceptions from the Hubble Space Telescope, researchers gauge the core of 3I/ATLAS to be anyplace between almost 440 meters up to 5.6 kilometers in breadth.
NASA Science
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As it drawn closer the Sun, 3I/ATLAS shown commonplace cometary behavior: frosts sublimated (turned to gas), creating a coma and tail. The tidy generation rates — induced from ground-based and shuttle perceptions — were steady with a or maybe dynamic comet.
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Particularly, pre‑perihelion perceptions between almost 4.6 and 1.8 cosmic units (AU) from the Sun appeared clean generation expanding with diminishing remove — generally taking after a power-law work, which matches desires for volatile-rich comets.
arXiv
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Why this things: With a critical estimate and dynamic dust/gas emanation, 3I/ATLAS gives sufficient “material” (gas, tidy, frigid grains) to permit point by point compositional and physical thinks about. That’s pivotal: little, black out interstellar objects like prior guests (e.g., 2I/Borisov) gave constrained information — but 3I/ATLAS is wealthy sufficient to uncover profound experiences into interstellar comet cosmetics and behavior.
4. Its interstellar beginning and hyperbolic direction are unmistakable — giving a uncommon chance to test fabric from past our sun based system
3I/ATLAS is the third affirmed interstellar protest ever found. Its circle is hyperbolic and not bound to the Sun, which implies it came from some place else past our sun powered framework and will take off once more after its flyby.
NASA Science
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The comet was found by the ground‑based Map book overview (Space rock Terrestrial‑impact Final Alarm Framework) telescope on July 1, 2025. Its inbound speed — at discovery — was generally 44 km/s, higher than for the past interstellar guests we’ve found.
NASA Science
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Its closest approach to the Sun (perihelion) happened around Oct. 30, 2025, at a separate of approximately 1.4 AU (fair interior the circle of Defaces).
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Because it is traveling through the sun powered framework as it were once, 3I/ATLAS offers a one of a kind test of fabric initially shaped around another star — something researchers once in a while get a chance to think about directly.
Why this things: This isn’t fair “another comet.” It’s a flag-bearer from a remote place — carrying clues approximately the chemistry and conditions in another stellar system’s protoplanetary disk. Examining it can offer assistance stargazers get it whether our sun oriented framework is normal or exceptionally distinctive compared to planetary frameworks somewhere else.
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