NASA releases new photos of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS

NASA released new images of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS — just the third cosmic visitor from elsewhere in the galaxy ever confirmed — on Wednesday.

NASA on Wednesday released new images of an interstellar comet, just the third visitor ever confirmed from elsewhere in the galaxy, which show the object as a bright point of light surrounded by a blurry halo of gas and dust.

In the long-awaited photos, the comet, dubbed 3I/ATLAS, mostly appears as an illuminated dot, but some images also reveal its tail as a faint, elongated smudge.

The interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, circled in the center, as seen by NASA’s Lucy spacecraft. This image was made by stacking a series of images taken Sept. 16 as the comet was zooming toward Mars.NASA / Goddard / SwRI / JHU-APLComet 3I/ATLAS was first detected in July, sparking a flurry of interest among scientists and in amateur astronomy circles. Much of the intrigue stems from the extremely rare chance to get a relatively up-close view of an interstellar object.

The new images were taken by various NASA spacecraft from late September through mid-October, as the mysterious comet swung through the inner solar system. They were not made public until now because of the government shutdown, which put work at NASA and other federal agencies on hold.

The NASA missions behind the new photos include its sun-watching PUNCH satellites, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) mission and the Perseverance Rover on the surface of Mars.