Hubble Takes First High-Quality Photo of Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS

Credit: NASA

Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS has been photographed for the first time without the Minecraft-style “pixelation” of the image. The image was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. After all, we don’t get visitors from the other end of the galaxy very often, so we can ignore them. In the Hubble image, 3I/ATLAS already looks like a comet, although it is still far from the Sun.

Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS has been photographed for the first time without the Minecraft-style “pixelation” of the image. The image was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. After all, we don’t get visitors from the other end of the galaxy very often, so we can ignore them. In the Hubble image, 3I/ATLAS already looks like a comet, although it is still far from the Sun.

The authors of the study showed that a maneuver using Jupiter’s gravity would change Juno’s trajectory and bring it closer to 3I/ATLAS. Calculations showed that the necessary boost could be obtained on September 9, just eight days before the planned end of the Juno mission.

The brightness of 3I/ATLAS suggests a diameter of about 20 kilometers, which, according to Loeb, makes it unlikely that it originated from the Milky Way. However, recent images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope indicate a small size of the comet’s nucleus – less than 2.8 kilometers.

Despite the discrepancy between the initial size estimates and the Hubble data, the planned Juno maneuver will allow the probe to use its entire suite of scientific instruments – spectroscopes, magnetometers, radiometers, gravity sensors, and others – to study the composition and characteristics of 3I/ATLAS, which will provide valuable information about other star systems.