JUICE’s NavCam Captures Activity Around Interstellar Visitor 3I/ATLAS — Coma and Two Tails Spotted

New Image Reveals Activity Around Interstellar Visitor 3I/ATLAS

A preliminary image taken by the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) NavCam shows clear signs of activity around the rare interstellar object 3I/ATLAS as it speeds through the Solar System. Astronomers worldwide are intensifying observations to determine the object’s nature and origin.

The object, widely believed to be comet-like, is expected to make its closest approach to Earth in December and will pass near Jupiter in March next year. Despite many ground- and space-based observations, key questions remain: what is 3I/ATLAS made of, how large is it, and which star system did it come from?

In November, JUICE used five science instruments to study the visitor’s composition and behavior. JUICE performed a Venus flyby in August to gain velocity for its long journey to Jupiter’s icy moons, where it will carry out detailed studies in 2031.

The spacecraft’s navigation camera (NavCam) captured a preliminary image of 3I/ATLAS on November 2 — two days before JUICE’s closest approach of about 41 million miles (≈66 million kilometers) and three days after the object passed perihelion (its closest point to the Sun).

"Though the data from the science instruments won’t arrive on Earth until February 2026, our JUICE team couldn’t wait that long," ESA said.

NavCam is a navigation instrument and not optimized for high-resolution astrophotography; its primary role is to support JUICE’s navigation at Jupiter. Nevertheless, with only a quarter of the image data downlinked so far, the science team identified a pronounced coma — the glowing envelope of gas and dust that surrounds a comet’s nucleus.

ESA reports the image also shows the hint of two tails. One appears to be a plasma tail of electrically charged gas that typically points roughly away from the Sun; the other is a fainter dust tail that tends to curve along the object’s orbital path. Observers had already noted a brightening plasma-like tail as 3I/ATLAS approached perihelion in October, consistent with increased sublimation of surface ices under stronger solar heating.

3I/ATLAS presents an exceptional opportunity to study material from beyond our stellar neighborhood: it is only the third confirmed interstellar object observed passing through the Solar System, after 1I/‘Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov.

The five JUICE instruments used during the encounter will deliver high-resolution multispectral and hyperspectral imaging, ultraviolet and submillimeter-wave measurements, and particle spectrometer data to probe the visitor’s composition and activity in more detail.

Scientists must wait for the complete science telemetry, however. ESA says the detailed dataset is not expected on Earth until late February 2026 because JUICE has positioned its main high-gain antenna between the spacecraft and the Sun as a heat shield; that forces the smaller medium-gain antenna to transmit back at a much lower data rate.

As the full data arrive and telescopes worldwide continue monitoring, astronomers hope to learn whether 3I/ATLAS behaves like a typical Solar System comet or shows signatures that reflect an origin around another star.