This picture of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS was captured by the JANUS digital camera aboard ESA’s Juice spacecraft on November 6, 2025, simply seven days after the comet made its closest method to the Solar. On the time, Juice was about 66 million km (41 million miles) away from the comet. The inset within the picture reveals the identical information, however processed to spotlight the coma construction. The arrows within the high left point out the course during which the comet was transferring (blue) and the relative course of the Solar (yellow). Picture credit score: ESA / Juice / JANUS.
3I/ATLAS was first noticed on July 1, 2025, by the NASA-funded ATLAS survey telescope in Rio Hurtado, Chile.
The interstellar comet — additionally cataloged as C/2025 N1 (ATLAS) and A11pl3Z — seems to have entered the Photo voltaic System from the course of the constellation Sagittarius.
The item follows probably the most dynamically excessive orbit ever measured within the Photo voltaic System, underscoring its interstellar origins and the extraordinary velocity.
On October 30, 2025, 3I/ATLAS reached perihelion, its closest level to the Solar.
It got here inside 1.4 AU (210 million km, or 130.5 million miles) of our residence star — simply contained in the orbit of Mars.
All through November 2025, the Juice spacecraft used 5 of its science devices — JANUS, MAJIS, SWI, PEP and UVS — to watch 3I/ATLAS.
Collectively, they collected data that can reveal how the comet was behaving and what it’s fabricated from.
“In the course of the months that adopted the observations, Juice was on the alternative aspect of the Solar to Earth,” stated members of the Juice crew.
“It was utilizing its foremost high-gain antenna as a warmth defend, and its smaller medium-gain antenna to ship again information to Earth at a decrease fee.”
“This meant that we needed to wait till final week to obtain the information,” they defined.
“We are actually working onerous to research them.”
In complete, the JANUS digital camera took greater than 120 pictures of 3I/ATLAS throughout a big wavelength vary.
The researchers are taking a better take a look at all these pictures to know what they reveal in regards to the comet.
They’re additionally learning spectrometry information, investigating information on the comet’s composition and particle information.
“[The newly-released JANUS image] shows jets popping out of the nucleus of 3I/ATLAS reverse to the course of the Solar,” stated Harvard College’s Professor Avi Loeb.
“That is stunning since pockets of ice on the floor of a rock are alleged to be warmed up by daylight on the Solar-facing aspect, creating jets which can be initially directed on the Solar.”
“It resembles pictures taken by beginner astronomers from Earth across the identical time.”
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