Overview
- NASA says 3I/ATLAS will make its closest approach to Earth on December 19, 2025 at roughly 170 million miles (270 million kilometers), or about 1.8 AU.
- The International Asteroid Warning Network and NASA are coordinating a worldwide astrometry campaign from November 27, 2025 through January 27, 2026, drawing on space and ground observatories to refine the comet’s path.
- Spacecraft and telescope data include ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter measurements that improved positional accuracy, alongside observations from Hubble, JWST, MRO, MAVEN, Perseverance, SOHO/STEREO/PUNCH, Lucy and Psyche.
- JWST spectra show an unusually CO2‑rich coma with detected CO, OCS, water and dust, and observers report active jets and brightness changes, refuting social‑media claims of complete disintegration.
- JPL Horizons predicts a March 16, 2026 pass near Jupiter at about 53.445 million kilometers—close to the planet’s Hill radius—prompting speculative claims from Avi Loeb about possible artificial probes that NASA and other scientists dispute, as the object remains classified as a natural comet on a hyperbolic escape trajectory.