Overview
- Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s HiRISE captured the closest view in early October from roughly 19 million miles, resolving about 19 miles per pixel and revealing a sunlit coma.
- Perseverance, ESA’s Trace Gas Orbiter and China’s Tianwen‑1 imaged the visitor near Mars, while SOHO, STEREO and PUNCH tracked it during solar conjunction.
- Deep‑space missions Psyche and Lucy also photographed 3I/ATLAS from tens to hundreds of millions of miles, contributing multi‑angle coverage.
- NASA associate administrator Amit Kshatriya said 3I/ATLAS “is a comet” that looks and behaves like one, and Mars‑based measurements sharpened its orbit by about a factor of ten.
- Harvard’s Avi Loeb continues to advance unverified anomalies, including jets apparently oriented along the direction of motion and a speculative Jupiter scenario for March 16, 2026, while the closest Earth approach is projected for December 19 at about 269 million kilometers.