NASA on Wednesday released new images of an interstellar comet, just the third visitor ever confirmed from elsewhere in the galaxy, which show the object as a bright point of light surrounded by a blurry halo of gas and dust.In the long-awaited photos, the comet, dubbed 3I/ATLAS, mostly appears as an illuminated dot, but some images also reveal its tail as a faint, elongated smudge.The interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, circled in the center, as seen by NASA’s Lucy spacecraft. This image was made by stacking a series of images taken Sept. 16 as the comet was zooming toward Mars. (NASA / Goddard / SwRI / JHU-APL)Comet 3I/ATLAS was first detected in July, sparking a flurry of interest among scientists and in amateur astronomy circles. Much of the intrigue stems from the extremely rare chance to get a relatively up-close view of an interstellar object.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe new images were taken by various NASA spacecraft from late September through mid-October, as the mysterious comet swung through the inner solar system. They were not made public until now because of the government shutdown, which put work at NASA and other federal agencies on hold.The NASA missions behind the new photos include its sun-watching PUNCH satellites, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) mission and the Perseverance Rover on the surface of Mars.Traveling 130,000 mph, 3I/ATLAS was made visible via a series of colorized stacked images from Sept. 11 to 25 using a visible-light imager on the STEREO-A (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory) spacecraft. (NASA / Lowell Observatory / Qicheng Zhang)Before 3I/ATLAS, the only two objects ever confirmed to have entered our solar system from someplace beyond in the galaxy were the cigar-shaped Oumuamua in 2017 and comet 2I/Borisov in 2019.While 3I/ATLAS’s visit to our cosmic neighborhood has fueled wild theories that the comet could be extraterrestrial technology or an alien spacecraft, there has been no scientific evidence to support such claims. In Wednesday’s briefing, NASA officials said all observations so far have been consistent with what researchers know about comets.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement“We certainly haven’t seen any techno signatures or anything from it that would lead us to believe it was anything other than a comet,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.Still, the object’s interstellar origin means it has intriguing characteristics that could yield new insights into star systems beyond our own, according to Fox.“It’s the differences that are so tantalizing for us,” she said. “It could be from something that existed before our own solar system. That is so cool.”In the weeks ahead, scientists will have more opportunities to study 3I/ATLAS and better characterize its features, including its appearance, speed, chemical makeup and possible place of origin.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement“This is a new scientific opportunity, and it’s a new window into the makeups and histories of other solar systems,” said Tom Statler, NASA’s lead scientist for solar system small bodies. “We’re just beginning to learn about these types of objects and figure out what are the right questions we should ask about them.”Observations of comet 3I/ATLAS from Sept. 28 to Oct. 10 from the PUNCH satellites in low-Earth orbit, when the comet was 231 million to 235 million miles away. (NASA / Southwest Research Institute)But tracing where the comet came from remains difficult, Statler said.More in ScienceComet 3I/ATLAS reached its closest point to the sun at the end of October …
