{"id":293233,"date":"2025-11-19T12:29:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T12:29:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/293233\/"},"modified":"2025-11-19T12:29:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T12:29:11","slug":"more-photos-of-interstellar-comet-3i-atlas-are-coming-watch-nasa-unveil-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/293233\/","title":{"rendered":"More photos of interstellar comet 3I\/ATLAS are coming. Watch NASA unveil them"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you’ve been eagerly waiting to see more high-resolution images of a fascinating interstellar comet known as 3I\/ATLAS<\/a>, your wait is almost over.<\/p>\n

NASA has announced that it will unveil a trove of 3I\/ATLAS imagery<\/a> captured by the space agency’s fleet of instruments both on the ground and up in space<\/a>. The impending photo-dump, set to take place during a public event Wednesday, Nov. 19, comes more than three months since NASA first released a high-res image captured by its Hubble Space Telescope<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Since then, anticipation has been mounting for another glimpse of an object that has increasingly become a source of public obsession<\/a>.<\/p>\n

First spotted by a ground telescope in Chile, 3I\/ATLAS has made waves as just the third-ever interstellar interloper originating from another star<\/a> spotted in Earth’s solar system. The object, which the world’s astronomers agree is a comet, also hasn’t been able to shake a persistent conspiracy theory<\/a> that it could be an alien spaceship<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Vera C. Rubin Observatory reaches for the stars: Take a look<\/p>\n

1 of 11<\/p>\n

The multi-colored tracks of asteroids flash on and off in this image of two spiral galaxies within the Virgo Cluster. Each of these tracks represents a moving asteroid detected by NSF\u2013DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory in its first few nights of observations.<\/p>\n

Ready to get a better look at 3I\/ATLAS? Here’s what to know about the comet<\/a>, and how to watch NASA release new photos of it.<\/p>\n

What is 3I\/ATLAS?\"Interstellar<\/p>\n

Interstellar comet 3I\/ATLAS will soon make it’s closest approach to Earth by Dec. 19 as it visits our solar system.<\/p>\n

An object known as 3I\/ATLAS<\/a> made news in July when it was confirmed to have originated outside Earth’s solar system<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The observation \u2013 first made by the NASA-funded Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, or ATLAS \u2013\u00a0 was\u00a0reported to the\u00a0Minor Planet Center<\/a>, the official authority for\u00a0observing and reporting new asteroids<\/a>, comets and other small bodies in the solar system. The object is also now\u00a0catalogued<\/a>\u00a0by NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.<\/p>\n

Observations of 3I\/ATLAS’s speed and trajectory confirmed to astronomers that it formed in another star system and was ejected into interstellar space \u2013 the region between the stars, according to NASA<\/a>. For potentially billions of years, the comet has drifted on a journey from the general direction of the constellation Sagittarius in the center of the Milky Way<\/a> that recently brought it into our solar system.<\/p>\n

That makes 3I\/ATLAS just the third interstellar object ever spotted in Earth’s cosmic neighborhood.<\/p>\n

NASA to release new photos of 3I\/ATLAS. Here’s how to watch<\/p>\n

NASA will host a live event at 3 p.m. ET Wednesday, Nov. 19, to release never-before-seen photos of 3I\/ATLAS. The images have been collected from the U.S. space agency’s fleet of space and ground telescopes, as well as spacecraft orbiting other planets in our solar system, according to a press release<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Taking place at NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, the event will also stream live online.<\/p>\n

Coverage will be available on the agency’s streaming app,\u00a0NASA+<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 also available on YouTube\u00a0<\/a>and the agency\u2019s\u00a0X account<\/a> \u2013 as well as\u00a0Amazon Prime<\/a>. Netflix, which also provides some live NASA coverage<\/a>, including rocket launches, is not promoting the event on its platform.<\/p>\n

While members of the media are asked to register to ask questions during the event, the public can also have their questions answered in real time by using #AskNASA on social media.<\/p>\n

Webb, Hubble among telescopes to study interstellar visitor\"Hubble<\/p>\n

Hubble captured this image of the interstellar comet 3I\/ATLAS on July 21, 2025, when the comet was 277 million miles from Earth. Hubble shows that the comet has a teardrop-shaped cocoon of dust coming off its solid, icy nucleus.<\/p>\n

Unlike comets bound to the sun’s gravity, 3I\/ATLAS is traveling on a hyperbolic orbit that will eventually carry it out of the solar system and back into interstellar space. That’s why the world’s astronomers and space agencies are\u00a0racing to study planetary material\u00a0that formed from another star.<\/p>\n

A fleet of NASA space telescopes \u2013 including the Hubble Space Telescope<\/a> and the James Webb Space Telescope<\/a> \u2013 have already returned images and data back to Earth<\/a> gathered from glimpsing the comet.<\/p>\n

A ground telescope in Chile, Gemini South telescope<\/a>, also glimpsed the comet’s glowing tail<\/a> in September, while a pair of Mars orbiters observed 3I\/ATLAS<\/a> when it came within about 19 million miles of the red planet in October.<\/p>\n

How big is 3I\/ATLAS?<\/p>\n

Astronomers don\u2019t yet know exactly how big 3I\/ATLAS could be, but estimates range from a few hundred feet to a few miles across, according to the European Space Agency<\/a>. Hubble’s data also allowed astronomers<\/a> to\u00a0estimate the size\u00a0of the comet\u2019s solid, icy nucleus as anywhere from about 1,400 feet to 3.5 miles wide, according to NASA.<\/p>\n

3I\/ATLAS completes close approach to sun, heads toward Earth\"An<\/p>\n

An image interstellar Comet 3I\/ATLAS captured by the Gemini South telescope in Chile, shows the comet\u2019s tail. 3I\/ATLAS is only the third confirmed interstellar visitor to our solar system.<\/p>\n

The comet 3I\/ATLAS, which is not in danger of hitting Earth, is projected to make its closest approach to our planet on Dec. 19. On that day, the object will come within about 170 million miles of our planet \u2013 or about twice the distance between Earth and the sun.<\/p>\n

The object flew within 130 million miles of the sun<\/a> on Oct. 30, just inside the orbit of Mars. For reference, the sun is about 93 million miles away from Earth.<\/p>\n

In the lead-up to 3I\/ATLAS making its closest approach to the sun \u2013 a moment known as perihelion\u00a0\u2013 the object was expected to steadily lose mass as frozen gases on its surface transformed into vapor, carrying dust and ice into space, according to the ESA.<\/p>\n

How fast is 3I\/ATLAS flying through space?<\/p>\n

When it was discovered, 3I\/ATLAS was whizzing at about 137,000 miles per hour, according to NASA.<\/p>\n

The interstellar visitor, though, was expected to only pick up speed \u2013 reaching as fast at 153,000 mph \u2013 as it continued its journey toward the sun.<\/p>\n

Now that it’s moving away from the sun, the comet’s speed will decrease as the sun’s gravity pulls it back. By the time 3I\/ATLAS leaves our solar system, it will be traveling at the same speed as when it entered, NASA says.<\/p>\n

Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: NASA to share new images of 3I\/ATLAS today. Here’s how to watch<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you’ve been eagerly waiting to see more high-resolution images of a fascinating interstellar comet known as 3I\/ATLAS,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54666,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[806,49,48,1677,36567,1598,34657,307,66,308,72209],"class_list":["post-293233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-atlas","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-earth","tag-hubble-space-telescope","tag-interstellar-comet","tag-interstellar-space","tag-nasa","tag-science","tag-solar-system","tag-space-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}