The European Space Agency<\/a> and NASA are known to have pointed their Mars spacecraft<\/a>, including surface rovers, toward the comet when 3I\/ATLAS, which is thought to be older than our solar system<\/a>, passed by in early October. And now the China National Space Administration (CNSA) has revealed that its own Tianwen 1<\/a> spacecraft imaged the comet between Oct. 1 and Oct. 4, publishing images showing its path during this time, as well as a standalone photo from Oct. 3.<\/p>\n You may like<\/p>\n A series of photos of the interstellar comet 3I\/ATLAS, captured from Mars orbit by Tianwen 1 in early October 2025. (Image credit: CNSA)<\/p>\n Tianwen 1 used its High-Resolution Imaging Camera (HiRIC) \u2014 somewhat comparable to HiRISE on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter<\/a> (MRO), but slightly lower resolution \u2014 to capture the comet moving against a stellar backdrop. The operation posed challenges, notably switching from imaging bright planetary surface features from low Mars orbit to tracking, from 18 million miles (28.96 million kilometers) away, a faint comet that’s moving at 129,800 mph (58 km per second) and is just 3.5 miles (5.6 km) wide.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n “Data acquired by a high-resolution camera was received, processed and displayed by a ground-based application system,” according to CNSA’s Nov. 5 statement<\/a>. “The images clearly show the comet’s distinctive features, consisting of a nucleus and a surrounding coma, with a diameter reaching several thousand kilometers.”<\/p>\n CNSA says the comet imaging project was an important extension mission for Tianwen 1, stating that the ability to observe faint celestial bodies provided a chance to perform useful technical tests and accumulate experience for the second mission in China’s deep-space exploration series, Tianwen 2<\/a>, which launched in May and is on its way to sample a near-Earth asteroid<\/a>.<\/p>\n Tianwen 1 is China’s first planetary exploration mission. It launched in July 2020 and entered Mars orbit in February 2021. The mission’s Zhurong rover<\/a> successfully landed in Mars’ Utopia Planitia region in May 2021 and operated on the surface for around one Earth year.<\/p>\n![\"black](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/E4FSjQL9dXPA3U8eES5EV6.gif\")
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