Posted on 10/31/2025 12:35:57 PM PDT by Red Badger
JUICE might be bound to Jupiter, but it is fortuitously in place to peek at this object from beyond the stars.
Comet 3I/ATLAS looking stunning!
Image credit: International Gemini Observatory /NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/Shadow the Scientist, Image Processing: J. Miller & M. Rodriguez (International Gemini Observatory/NSF NOIRLab), T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage/NSF NOIRLab), M. Zamani (NSF NOIRLab) (CC BY 4.0)
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Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS is about to be studied from not one but two locations in deep space. The comet has just gone through perihelion, the closest approach to the Sun, but unfortunately, it is on the opposite side of our star. Over the last few days, it has become visible again, but it can’t be studied in detail from observatories on and around Earth due to the glare of the Sun. That’s how JUICE comes into the fray.
The European Space Agency’s JUICE is a groundbreaking mission to study the icy moons of Jupiter: Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa. We believe that there are liquid oceans inside those moons, and the mission will study their properties, including the possibility of life. It will also become the first spacecraft to enter orbit around a moon that is not the Moon: Ganymede, the largest moon in the Solar System and the only one with a magnetic field.
But to do all that, the spacecraft is on a fuel-saving, slow-and-steady trajectory to Jupiter – it will get there in the early 2030s. So, the probe is just traveling in deep space, which means it is in a fortuitously good position to catch comet 3I/ATLAS in these exciting days post-perihelion.
“All this campaign was unexpected for everybody!" Olivier Witasse, ESA Project Scientist, told IFLScience. "For JUICE, indeed, we are in a cruise phase during which there are thermal constraints, being relatively close to the Sun (with respect to the science phase around Jupiter). Therefore, no payload activities were expected to take place at this moment. However, given the uniqueness of these observations, it was decided to prepare this extra observation planning."
VIDEO AT LINK...........
The spacecraft will observe the comet twice, even though it will never get very close. The close passage will be on November 4, when the comet will be 64 million kilometers (39.8 million miles) from JUICE. That is about 0.428 astronomical units, with 1 AU being the average Earth-Sun distance. Despite the distance, JUICE has a camera and instruments ready to study the comet.
“JUICE will observe 3I/ATLAS between 2 and 25 November. We will be using five instruments: the camera, the near-infrared imaging instrument, the UV spectrometer, the sub-millimetre instrument, and a sensor to image neutral atoms. We are far away (0.5 Astronomical units), therefore, only remote sensing,” Witasse explained.
ESA missions not on Earth have already observed the comet, such as the space agency’s orbiters around Mars. Using JUICE is a great opportunity to study the comet at its period of maximum activity, even though it will take some time to collect all this data.
“Due to the position of JUICE with respect to Earth, the data rate is very low. We expect the data to be downloaded only in February 2026, so we need to be a bit patient,” Witasse explained.
While we wait for these insights, more will be coming. The comet is now coming away from the Sun, and the Earth is moving towards it, so we will have better chances to see it from our own backyard.
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We don’t have anything fast enough to catch up and nuke it.
How many megaton?
Seems a bit tardy...
/s
Rendezvous with Rama. They just happened to have a spaceship in the vicinity of the visitor that could help with it. (Granted this Jupiter mission is unmanned, and isn’t going to LAND on the visitor. But I’m still reminded of the story).
They say it will not come any closer than just inside the orbit of Mars and then head back out to infinity.
But what if they are wrong?..............
Article:
“We expect the data to be downloaded only in February 2026”
They buried the lead.
Lol.
We welcome our new Atlasian overlords...
Truly masterful Science Fiction writing. Couldn’t put the book down. The only book that (imho) eclipsed Heineken, Clark and Asimov is Project:Hail Mary by Andy Weir
While not nearly as prolific as these other masters; I thought Hail Mary was a really great story
Is JUICE headed off to the next planet out from Jupiter when it’s done there?
An epic thread awaits if that’s the case.
😁
Whee-ooo-ee-ooo-ee.
They are not wrong.
Atlas is a big rock from far away, where they do (or did) things differently than around here. Everything about it is strange. The closest observations we can make will wreck most theories of planetary development and stellar evolution.
Now that we have gotten good at spotting these things, we can expect to find a great many more of them. Eventually we may have craft on standby which will be in position to get a really close look at one.
Much wailing and gnashing of teeth can be expected as the astronomers are required to come up with new theories to explain what they find.
I will enjoy the show.
One Big Flying Rock
So Little Time.
Perhaps you mean Heinlein, Clark, and Asimov?
Uranus next at 5.
😁
Spellcheck to the rescue.
Heinlein is at least close to Heineken
Great catch. Was enjoying a burger with my wife and didn’t even notice the substitution
Long live rocks.
Shot out from the center of our Milky Way like a bullet. I’m thinking 3I/ATLAS may be the metallic core of a planetoid that got too close to a black hole. Three miles wide, that’s a lot of metal, Ni(CO)4, Fe(CO)5.
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