{"id":51901,"date":"2025-10-02T19:41:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T19:41:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/51901\/"},"modified":"2025-10-02T19:41:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T19:41:10","slug":"scientists-to-get-closest-look-yet-at-mysterious-object-as-it-blasts-past-mars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/51901\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists to get closest look yet at mysterious object as it blasts past Mars"},"content":{"rendered":"

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From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.<\/p>\n

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A rare visitor from beyond our solar system, comet 3I\/Atlas, is poised to make a dramatic close approach to Mars<\/a> this Friday, as a fleet of spacecraft trains its sights on the interstellar visitor. <\/a><\/p>\n

The interstellar object will hurtle within 18 million miles (29 million kilometres) of the Red Planet, marking its nearest pass during its journey through the inner solar system at a staggering speed of 193,000 mph (310,000 kph).<\/p>\n

Both of the European Space Agency<\/a>‘s satellites orbiting Mars<\/a> have already begun training their cameras on the comet, which is only the third interstellar object known to have traversed our cosmic neighbourhood. <\/p>\n

NASA<\/a>‘s satellites and rovers stationed on Mars<\/a> are also prepared to contribute to the extensive observations.<\/p>\n

Discovered in July, the comet poses no threat to Earth<\/a> or its planetary neighbours. It is expected to reach its closest point to the sun by the end of October. <\/p>\n

Throughout November, the ESA’s Juice<\/a> spacecraft, currently en route to Jupiter<\/a> and its icy moons, will continue to monitor the comet. <\/p>\n

\"ThisThis image composed from multiple exposures and provided by NSF’s NOIRLab shows a comet streaking across a star field above the International Gemini Observatory on Cerro Pachon, near La Serena, Chile (NSF’s NoirLab via AP)<\/p>\n

Its closest approach to Earth<\/a> will occur in December, passing at a distance of 167 million miles (269 million kilometres). <\/p>\n

Observations by the Hubble Space Telescope<\/a> suggest the comet’s nucleus measures no more than 3.5 miles (5.6 kilometres) across, with NASA<\/a> indicating it could be as small as 1,444 feet (440 metres).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51902,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[85,46,141,145],"class_list":["post-51901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}