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New Hubble and JUICE Views Show Active Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS With Hint of Two Tails

JUICE data stay queued until February, with astronomers preparing for an intensive observing window at the December 19 Earth pass.

Last month, the European Space Agency used five of the science instruments attached to its JUICE spacecraft to examine 3I/ATLAS.
Image
This image from ESA’s Juice spacecraft shows the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS. Image credit: ESA / Juice / NavCam / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.
NASA posts new photos of the comet amid spacecraft claims (Photo by NASA / AFP)

Overview

  • Hubble captured new images on November 30 that refine estimates of 3I/ATLAS’s nucleus, activity levels, and trajectory as it continues on an unbound, hyperbolic path.
  • JUICE’s NavCam preliminary image from November 2 reveals a bright coma and a faint suggestion of both a plasma tail and a dust tail despite the camera’s navigation role.
  • ESA says JUICE used five science instruments to study the object’s composition and behavior, but the full datasets will not reach Earth until February 2026 due to limited downlink while the high‑gain antenna shields the spacecraft from the Sun.
  • Observations from multiple facilities, including JWST, report dust, water ice, other volatiles, and non‑gravitational acceleration consistent with cometary outgassing.
  • The interstellar visitor is expected to pass closest to Earth on December 19 and near Jupiter in March 2026, focusing coordinated follow‑up across ground and space telescopes; speculative artificial‑origin claims remain unsupported by current data.