First glimpse of comet 3I/ATLAS from Juice science camera A striking image captured by the science camera on ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) reveals interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS as it spews dust and gas into space. The image shows the comet’s nucleus, though not directly visible, surrounded by a bright halo of gas known as the coma. A long tail stretches away from the object, with visible rays, jets, streams, and filaments indicating active outgassing. The inset highlights the coma’s structure, with arrows pointing to the comet’s motion (blue) and the Sun’s direction (yellow). The image was taken on 6 November 2025, just seven days after the comet passed its closest point to the Sun. At that time, Juice was approximately 66 million kilometers away from the comet. Over the following weeks, the spacecraft used five science instruments—JANUS, MAJIS, SWI, PEP, and UVS—to study 3I/ATLAS. These observations aim to uncover details about the comet’s composition and behavior, including how it interacts with solar radiation. Juice’s position on the opposite side of the Sun from Earth during much of November posed challenges for data transmission. The spacecraft used its main high-gain antenna as a heat shield, relying on a smaller medium-gain antenna to send data at a reduced rate. This delay meant instrument teams had to wait until recently to access the full dataset, which they are now analyzing intensively. JANUS, the primary camera, captured over 120 images of the comet across a wide range of wavelengths. Scientists are examining these images to determine what they reveal about the comet’s structure and activity. Despite the slow pace of scientific analysis, the data collected is expected to provide valuable insights into the nature of interstellar comets.#3i_atlas #jupiter_icy_moons_explorer #esa #janus #comet
