NASA publishes close-up images of an interstellar comet making a rare flyby

NASA released close-up images on Wednesday rare interstellar comet that is making a single pass through the solar system.

One of the images shows the comet, also known as 3I/ATLASas it moves through space about 190 million miles from Earth. It was taken from Manciano, Italy.

The comet was first discovered in July and has been photographed several times. At the beginning of August, published images showed the comet from about 277 million miles away. a month ago, Images taken by two Mars orbiters. showed a bright, fuzzy white dot of the comet about 18,641,135 miles away from Mars.

3I/ATLAS is only the third confirmed interstellar comet to enter our solar system.

The comet is visible from Earth in the predawn sky using binoculars or a telescope.

“Everyone who has control of a telescope wants to see it because it’s a unique and exciting opportunity,” NASA acting director of astrophysics Shawn Domagal-Goldman told The News.

The comet will make its closest approach to Earth on Friday, December 19, at about 170 million miles, which is almost twice the Earth-Sun distance. NASA’s spacecraft will continue to follow it as it moves through the solar system, crossing Jupiter’s orbit in spring 2026.

ESA’s Jupiter-bound Juice spacecraft has been pointing its cameras and scientific instruments at the comet all month, particularly after it made its closest pass to the sun. But scientists won’t get any of these observations until February because Juice’s main antenna serves as a heat shield while it’s close to the sun, limiting data flow.

Named for the telescope in Chile that first detected it, the comet is believed to be between 1,444 feet and 3.5 miles in diameter. Observations indicate that the exceptionally fast-moving comet may have originated in a star system older than our own, “which gives me goosebumps thinking about it,” said NASA scientist Tom Statler.

“That means that 3I/ATLAS is not just a window to another solar system, it is a window to the deep past and so deep into the past that it predates even the formation of our Earth and our sun,” Statler told reporters.

NASA officials have dismissed rumors that the “friendly visitor to the solar system” could actually be an extraterrestrial spacecraft.