On Nov. 9, NASA, after being delayed and almost sabotaged by the government shutdown, was finally able to release the first pictures of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS. Only the third object known to have entered our solar system from “outer space” in the modern era, 3I/ATLAS was first discovered in June by the Asteroid Terrestrial-Impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) telescope in Chile. 3I/ATLAS is also not a typical comet, since it was just “passing through” our solar system, never to be seen again, making the information gained even more valuable. The story behind the photos reveals the mobilization of a virtual armada of space resources, showing the value of having an “infrastructure in-depth” in the solar system.
To get the images—the closest of which was taken from 39 million miles away—NASA mobilized resources from (to name just a few) the James Webb Space Telescope, and the Perseverance Mars rover, and the Lucy asteroid-studying probe (all in service since 2021), the 19-year-old Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, as well as the European Space Agency’s Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO, in service since 1996, has just discovered its 5,000th comet). According to Space.com, which provides a complete list, “an impressive 15 different agency space missions are confirmed to have their eyes peeled” for a glimpse of the comet. “We’ve even pushed our scientific instruments beyond their normal capabilities, beyond the things that they were designed to achieve, to allow us to capture this amazing glimpse at this interstellar traveler,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, speaking to media on Nov. 19.
