{"id":269598,"date":"2025-11-18T11:51:15","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T11:51:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/269598\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T11:51:15","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T11:51:15","slug":"nasa-is-about-to-drop-photos-of-3i-atlas-at-its-weirdest-sciencealert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/269598\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA Is About to Drop Photos of 3I\/ATLAS At Its Weirdest : ScienceAlert"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s happening: We’re finally getting a treasure trove of shiny new images of comet 3I\/ATLAS, the third ultra-rare known object<\/a> to enter the Solar System from interstellar space.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday November 19 at 20:00 UTC (15:00 EST), NASA will host an event<\/a> to drop a plethora of 3I\/ATLAS imagery collected by the ground-based telescopes and spacecraft supported by the agency.<\/p>\n

You can tune in to watch at the YouTube embed below.<\/p>\n

\"YouTube frameborder=”0\u2033 allow=”accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share” referrerpolicy=”strict-origin-when-cross-origin” allowfullscreen><\/p>\n

NASA is playing coy about the instruments involved, but Hubble<\/a>, JWST<\/a>, and Mars orbiters may likely have observed the object from space, while observatories such as the ATLAS survey telescope<\/a> and the Gemini observatory<\/a> may have captured it from the ground.<\/p>\n

Related: Don’t Panic! 3I\/ATLAS Isn’t an Alien Death Probe, But It Is Wildly Unusual<\/a><\/p>\n

Interstellar comet 3I\/ATLAS made a huge splash when it burst onto the scene in July 2025<\/a>, but now we’re at the critical point of its trajectory through the Solar System. The ultra-weird comet<\/a> disappeared behind the Sun from Earth’s viewpoint on October 21, and reached perihelion \u2013 that’s its closest approach to the Sun \u2013 on October 29, before re-emerging in early November.<\/p>\n

Perihelion is when you’re likely to see a comet do some exciting things<\/a>. They’re known as ‘dirty snowballs<\/a>‘ because they are basically clumps of rock and ice; as they get near the Sun, the ice starts to sublimate, creating a tiny atmosphere, or coma, and the tails of vapor and ions that comets are known for. At perihelion, this activity is at its peak.<\/p>\n

\"YouTube frameborder=”0\u2033 allow=”accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share” referrerpolicy=”strict-origin-when-cross-origin” allowfullscreen><\/p>\n

Because 3I\/ATLAS was behind the Sun during perihelion, we were unable to observe this activity from Earth. However, the comet was really close to Mars<\/a> at the time, leading to anticipation that instruments orbiting the red planet captured this moment. Indeed, we already have some Mars observations of the comet<\/a>, courtesy of the European Space Agency.<\/p>\n

As NASA pointed out<\/a>, “Assets within NASA’s science missions give the United States the unique capability to observe 3I\/ATLAS almost the entire time it passes through our celestial neighborhood, and study \u2013 with complementary scientific instruments and from different directions \u2013 how the comet behaves.”<\/p>\n

\"Win<\/a><\/p>\n

A lot of eyes have been on this icy rock, and will continue to be until it disappears from view. But the best opportunity for ground-based observations is yet to come. 3I\/ATLAS will make its closest approach to Earth on December 19<\/a>, when it will be about 270 million kilometers (170 million miles<\/a>) away.<\/p>\n

We’ll be excited to see what Earth’s telescopes come up with when that day comes. Meanwhile, you can tune into the upcoming NASA broadcast on NASA+<\/a>, the NASA Live website<\/a>, the YouTube embed above, or the NASA app.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It’s happening: We’re finally getting a treasure trove of shiny new images of comet 3I\/ATLAS, the third ultra-rare…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":269599,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[249,90,416,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-269598","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-msft-content","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-space","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom","13":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}