Several spacecraft are on watch this week as an interstellar traveler approaches Mars.
This is real life, not a sci-fi movie, but there’s also no impending alien invasion. It’s just a harmless but fascinating comet hurtling through space.
Comet 3I/ATLAS, which is just the third known object from another star system to pass through our solar system, has been speeding through our space neighborhood for several months and will make its closest approach to Mars on Friday. The word closest is relative here, since the comet will still be 18 million miles away from the red planet.
Discovered in July, Comet 3I/ATLAS poses no threat to Earth or other planets because its trajectory will keep it far away from those celestial bodies.
The comet had been visible from Earth from July through September but now can’t be tracked from here because it is on the far side of the sun from our planet. The sun is blocking the view. Until it becomes visible from Earth again in early December, scientists are left to rely on their eyes in the sky — various spacecraft that Earthlings have launched over the years.
Enter the European Space Agency’s two Mars satellites, which now have their cameras pointed at 3I/ATLAS. The comet also could provide good viewing this week for NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter satellite and its Perseverance rover on the planet.
Back in July, the comet was traveling at about 137,000 mph, but now is whizzing at 149,000 mph and gaining speed as it gets closer to the sun. With an estimated diameter between a quarter mile and 3.5 miles, the icy comet is trailed by a dusty tail that is thousands of miles long.
After passing by Mars, 3I/ATLAS will make its closest approach to the sun in late October, at a distance of 126 million miles. Earth’s average distance from the sun, by comparison, is about 93 million miles.
In early November, the comet will buzz within 60 million miles of Venus. The European Space Agency’s JUICE spacecraft, which is bound for Jupiter and that planet’s icy moons, will track 3I/ATLAS throughout November.
The comet’s closest brush with Earth will come in mid-December, when it gets as close as 167 million miles away.
It will continue on its way through and then out of our solar system after that, getting as close as 33 million miles from Jupiter in mid-March.
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