The photos are out of this world!<\/p>\n
NASA unveiled jaw-dropping high-res images<\/a> of 3I\/ATLAS on Wednesday as questions swirl about the origin of the Manhattan-sized interstellar object. <\/p>\n The long-awaited photos<\/a>, snapped by multiple NASA spacecraft between September and mid-October, show a tiny, glowing orb encircled by a hazy halo of gas and dust, hurtling through space about 190 million miles from Earth at a staggering 153,000 miles per hour.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a little bit as if our NASA spacecraft were at a baseball game, watching the game from different places in the stadium,\u201d said Tom Statler, NASA lead scientist for solar system small bodies, CNN reported.<\/a><\/p>\n NASA\u2019s Lucy spacecraft captured 3I\/ATLAS circled in red, with a fuzzy halo of gas and dust and a tail flowing to the right. NASA\/Goddard\/SwRI\/JHU-APL<\/p>\n \u201cEverybody has got a camera and they\u2019re trying to get a picture of the ball and nobody has a perfect view, and everybody has a different camera.\u201d<\/p>\n NASA\u2019s Psyche Mission captured four different views<\/a> of the celestial object over an eight-hour span on Sept. 8 and 9 from 33 million miles away, giving scientists a first detailed look at the faint, ghostly gas cloud \u2013 or coma \u2013 enveloping its nucleus, the space agency said.<\/p>\n The interstellar comet 3I\/Atlas streaks through space with a tail, surrounded by numerous trailed stars. AP<\/p>\n Days later, the Lucy Mission snapped a new batch of images from 240 million miles out, stacking them previous shots to shed light on the comet\u2019s misty coma and trailing tail.<\/a><\/p>\n NASA\u2019s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Perseverance rover also kept a close eye on the comet<\/a> as it whizzed past the Red Planet in October.<\/p>\n Nearly 20 mission teams collaborated to capture the stunning images, a NASA official told CNN.<\/p>\n Illustration of the trajectory of Comet 3I\/ATLAS and its observation by ESA missions. ESA<\/p>\n \u201cEverything we\u2019re learning about the comet is possible because of the distribution of all of the different instruments on our spacecraft with different capabilities,\u201d said Nicky Fox, associate administrator for NASA\u2019s Science Mission Directorate.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve even pushed out scientific instruments beyond the things that they were designed to achieve, to allow us to capture this amazing glimpse at this interstellar traveler.\u201d<\/p>\n An ultraviolet image composite showing hydrogen atoms surrounding 3I\/ATLAS. NASA\/Goddard\/LASP\/CU Boulder<\/p>\n The images were delayed<\/a> due to the government shutdown, which ended last week.<\/p>\n The stellar voyager \u2013 just the third ever spotted in our solar system \u2013 was first detected in July, igniting a frenzy among scientists debating whether it\u2019s a natural object or a mysterious alien probe.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cIt looks and behaves like a comet, and all evidence points to it being a comet,\u201d NASA Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya told CNN.<\/p>\n 3I\/ATLAS will make its closest approach to Earth on Dec. 19. via REUTERS<\/p>\n \u201cBut this one came from outside the solar system, which makes it fascinating, exciting and scientifically very important.\u201d<\/p>\n