The Hubble group has launched a surprising new picture snapped by the NASA/ESA Hubble House Telescope of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, which is just the third object of its variety ever noticed.
This picture of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS was taken by Hubble on November 30, 2025. On the time, the comet was about 286 million km (178 million miles) from Earth. Picture credit score: NASA / ESA / STScI / D. Jewitt, UCLA / M.-T. Hui, Shanghai Astronomical Observatory / J. DePasquale, STScI.
3I/ATLAS was found by the NASA-funded ATLAS (Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Final Alert System) survey telescope in Rio Hurtado, Chile, on July 1, 2025.
On the time, the interstellar comet was at a heliocentric distance of 4.51 astronomical models (AU), with an eccentricity of 6.13.
Also referred to as C/2025 N1 (ATLAS) and A11pl3Z, the thing arrived from the route of the constellation Sagittarius, and is shifting with a really excessive radial velocity of round 58 km (36 miles) per second.
3I/ATLAS made an in depth method to Mars at a distance of 0.194 AU on October 3 and reached its closest method to the Solar — generally known as perihelion — on October 30.
The interstellar customer might be approaching Jupiter at a distance of 0.357 AU on March 16, 2026.
On November 30, the astronomers used Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) instrument to look at 3I/ATLAS.
“Hubble tracked the comet because it moved throughout the sky,” they mentioned in a press release.
“Consequently, background stars seem as streaks of sunshine.”
“Hubble previously observed 3I/ATLAS in July, shortly after its discovery, and a lot of NASA missions have since studied the comet as nicely.”
“Observations are anticipated to proceed for a number of extra months as 3I/ATLAS heads out of the Photo voltaic System.
“The picture exhibits a teardrop-shaped glowing halo that extends in direction of the Solar,” said Harvard College’s Professor Avi Loeb in regards to the new Hubble picture.
“This sunward anti-tail extension was additionally obvious within the pre-perihelion Hubble picture, taken on July 21, as 3I/ATLAS was approaching the Solar from a distance that’s 56% bigger from Earth.”
“The brand new radius of the glow is about 40,000 km (24,855 miles) and its anti-tail extension goes out to about 60,000 km (37,282 miles).”
“In a recent paper, I prompt that the teardrop of the coma in post-perihelion photographs of 3I/ATLAS is related to a lot of macroscopic non-volatile objects that separated from it on account of its measured non-gravitational acceleration away from the Solar,” he mentioned.
“I predicted that by November thirtieth, the swarm of objects could be nearer to the Solar than 3I/ATLAS by about 60,000 km if the objects overlapped with 3I/ATLAS at perihelion.”
“This separation is in excellent settlement with the anti-tail extension of the teardrop form within the new Hubble picture.”
