NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is latest to get a look at interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS Eric Lagatta, USA TODAY August 27, 2025 at 10:44 PM Two more of NASA's space telescopes recently got another look at comet 3I/ATLAS, a captivating interstellar interloper that first captured the world's attentio...
- - NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is latest to get a look at interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS
Eric Lagatta, USA TODAY August 27, 2025 at 10:44 PM
Two more of NASA's space telescopes recently got another look at comet 3I/ATLAS, a captivating interstellar interloper that first captured the world's attention in July.
The object – just the third ever to be observed in Earth's cosmic neighborhood originating from another solar system – was first observed by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, which captured what the U.S. space agency bills as "the sharpest-ever picture" of 3I/ATLAS.
Now, the James Webb Space Telescope and another newer observatory known as SPHEREx had their own opportunities to document the intriguing comet, which has been drifting through interstellar space for billions of years. While the scientific community is largely in agreement that 3I/ATLAS poses all the telltale characteristics of a comet, a controversial astrophysicist from Harvard University stirred up public fascination when he began claiming it could be an alien spaceship.
The world's scientists and space agencies may not be buying such a sensational theory, but they're still trying to get a better idea of just what the comet is and from where it came.
What is 3I/ATLAS comet?
A look at 3I/ATLAS from NASA.
A likely comet known as 3I/ATLAS made news in July when it was confirmed to have originated outside Earth's solar system, which makes it just one of three known interstellar objects ever discovered in our cosmic neighborhood.
What's more, the object, which scientists estimate to be more than 12 miles wide, is whizzing at 130,000 miles per hour relative to the sun on a trajectory that on Oct. 30 will bring it within about 130 million miles of Earth, according to NASA.
A telescope in Chile – part of the NASA-funded Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, or ATLAS – was the first to spot what initially looked like an unknown asteroid on a path approaching Earth's orbit.
The observation was reported to the Minor Planet Center, the official authority for observing and reporting new asteroids, comets and other small bodies in the solar system. The object, eventually confirmed to almost certainly be a comet and named 3I/ATLAS, was later confirmed to have interstellar origins after follow-up observations.
NASA telescopes get another look at interstellar comet: See photos
Though the object poses no threat to Earth, astronomers and the world's space agencies are still intrigued enough to want to observe 3I/ATLAS as closely as possible.
NASA's iconic Hubble Space Telescope previously got a glimpse of the comet in July, collecting data that allowed astronomers to estimate the size of the comet's solid, icy nucleus as anywhere from 1,000 feet to 3.5 miles wide. Hubble's observations may have helped pinpoint the comet's size, but scientists still have not determined what comprises its core, nore precisely where in the cosmos it originated.
The James Webb Space Telescope then observed the interstellar object Aug. 6 in near-infrared light, followed by the newer SPHEREx telescope from Aug. 7-Aug. 15, to get a better idea of its physical properties and chemical makeup.
Here's a look at the images each telescope captured:
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope observed interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS Aug. 6, with its Near-Infrared Spectrograph instrument.
NASA's SPHEREx space telescope observed interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS from Aug. 7 to Aug. 15.
More information about the observations from each telescope are available at online preprint research repositories, including Webb's findings at Zenodo and SPHEREx's data on arxiv.
What is the James Webb Space Telescope?
The James Webb Space Telescope Mirror is seen during a media unveiling at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center at Greenbelt, Maryland November 2, 2016.REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo
The James Webb Space Telescope launched on Christmas Day 2021 aboard an Ariane 5 rocket from the European Space Agency's Ariane Space Spaceport in French Guiana.
Webb, which then began its cosmic operations in July 2022, was designed to operate for up to 10 years. But as fortune would have it, the mission team determined the observatory should have enough propellant to allow it to operate in orbit for more than 20 years.
Billed by NASA as "the largest, most powerful and most complex telescope ever launched into space," the James Webb Space Telescope far surpasses the abilities of its predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope. The observatory is named for NASA's second-ever administrator.
Orbiting the sun rather than Earth, Webb is outfitted with a gold-coated mirror more than 21 feet in diameter and powerful infrared instruments to observe the cosmos like no instrument before.
Hubble, by the way, recently reached its own milestone in April when it marked its 35th year since launching in 1990 on the space shuttle Discovery from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
What is SPHEREx? NASA launches telescope from California
NASA's SPHEREx space observatory was photographed at BAE Systems in Boulder, Colorado, in November 2024 after completing environmental testing. The spacecraft's three concentric cones help direct heat and light away from the telescope and other components, keeping them cool.
In March, NASA also deployed into orbit its SPHEREx telescope to collect data on more than 450 million galaxies.
The telescope got off the ground on March 12, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
Scientists say the SPHEREx observatory, which became operational in May, will be able to get a wider view of the Milky Way galaxy – identifying objects of scientific interest that telescopes like Hubble and Webb can then study up close.
For the next 25 months, the SPHEREx observatory will orbit Earth more than 11,000 times while surveying and imaging the surrounding sky. When SPHEREx takes pictures of the sky, the light is sent to six detectors that can capture different wavelengths of light, or exposures.
By the mission's end, NASA will weave hundreds of thousands of SPHEREx's images into digital sky maps.
Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at [email protected]
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 2 NASA space telescopes get another glimpse of 3I/ATLAS. Take a look
Source: "AOL AOL General News"
Source: CR MAG
Full Article on Source: CR MAG
#LALifestyle #USCelebrities