“Observations of interstellar objects are still rare enough that we learn something new on every occasion,” said Shane Byrne, HiRISE principal investigator at the University of Arizona. “We’re fortunate that 3I/ATLAS passed this close to Mars.”
MAVEN HiRISE Camera Captures Trajectory
From roughly 30 million kilometers away, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter used its HiRISE camera to photograph the comet’s fuzzy coma, the cloud of dust and gas released as it nears the Sun.
Leslie Tamppari, MRO’s project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, emphasized the mission’s unexpected contribution:
“This is one of those occasions where we get to study a passing space object as well.”
MRO’s observations help refine estimates of the comet’s size, structure, and trajectory—critical data for understanding objects that wander into our cosmic neighborhood from deep space.
🔗 NASA — MRO and HiRISE (https://www.nasa.gov)
Perseverance Rover Adds Ground-Level Perspective
From the surface of Mars, NASA’s Perseverance rover also captured an image of Comet 31/ATLAS on October 4, 2025, using its Mastcam-Z camera.
