A fresh image of comet 3I/ATLAS has been taken by a European spacecraft en route to Jupiter, generating excitement among scientists.
3I/ATLAS is an interstellar comet, meaning it originated far outside our Solar System in another region of the Galaxy. It is among a very small handful of such objects ever detected within our planetary neighborhood. While it makes a fleeting pass through our system, researchers are pooling every available telescope and camera to study it as deeply as possible before it vanishes from view.
In November 2025, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) mission turned its gaze toward the comet. JUICE is specifically designed to study Jupiter’s large icy moons—Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa—which are believed to harbor subsurface oceans beneath their frozen surfaces. These worlds are especially intriguing in the search for habitability because liquid water is a key ingredient for life as we know it.
Why focus on 3I/ATLAS
Discovered on 1 July 2025, 3I/ATLAS is a rare visitor from beyond our Solar System. Because its passage is short, there hasn’t been time to send a dedicated mission to meet it. Still, scientists anticipate that future interstellar visitors could be explored by purpose-built spacecraft.
The detection of an interstellar comet like 3I/ATLAS is an exceptional event; most comets come from within our own planetary system. Astronomers estimate that 3I/ATLAS could be at least 7 billion years old—nearly twice the age of the Sun—potentially making it the oldest comet ever observed.
During autumn 2025, the comet briefly slipped behind the Sun from Earth’s perspective. To monitor activity, scientists leveraged the wide array of spacecraft already deployed across the Solar System to gather images and data.
Both ESA’s JUICE and NASA’s Mars missions captured views of 3I/ATLAS from their respective vantage points, complemented by several NASA solar-observing missions providing additional imagery.
JUICE’s first comet observations occurred in early November 2025. The spacecraft used five of its scientific instruments to study the comet’s behavior and composition. It also snapped a photo of 3I/ATLAS with its Navigation Camera (NavCam), a tool primarily meant to help JUICE navigate Jupiter’s icy moons when it arrives there in 2031. Although NavCam is not a high-resolution science instrument, it managed to photograph the comet.
Earthbound scientists will receive the full dataset from JUICE’s five active instruments in February 2026, but a preview was shared early when mission teams downloaded a portion of a NavCam image.
What JUICE saw in the 3I/ATLAS image
The snapshot, captured on 2 November 2025 during JUICE’s initial comet-watching session, came just two days beforeJUICE’s closest approach to the comet on 4 November at a distance of about 66 million kilometers (roughly 41 million miles).
The image reveals a busy, active comet right after its perihelion—the closest point to the Sun—where solar heating drives ices to sublimate and vent gaseous material into space.
Two tails are visible. The dominant tail consists of ionized gas streaming toward the upper portion of the frame, while a fainter dust tail, composed of tiny solid particles, extends toward the lower left.
Looking ahead, JUICE’s data return is expected to reveal even more about 3I/ATLAS. ESA states that the five science instruments—JANUS (the high-resolution optical camera), MAJIS, UVS, SWI, and PEP—will deliver their data on 18 and 20 February 2026. The delay stems from JUICE temporarily using its main high-gain antenna as a heat shield against the Sun, leaving only its smaller medium-gain antenna available to transmit data at a reduced rate.
Researchers anticipate a rich trove of findings, including additional high-resolution images from JANUS, plus spectrometry, composition, and particle data. These insights could deepen understanding of what 3I/ATLAS is made of and how interstellar comets compare to those born in our own Solar System.
