The European Space Agency has released a new image of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, captured by one of its spacecraft on the way to Jupiter.
The image was captured when the comet was close to the Sun, spewing out dust and gas.
In the image, scientists spotted a bright halo of gas surrounding the comet's head, known as the coma.
A long tail is visible too, along with rays, jets streams and filaments emanating from 3I/ATLAS.
More on 3I/ATLAS
Juice's science images of 3I/ATLAS
The image was captured by the European Space Agency's Juice spacecraft, which is on its way to Jupiter to study the gas giant's icy moons.
Some of Jupiter's largest icy moons contain a liquid ocean underneath their frozen crust, and are therefore among the best places to look for signs of life beyond Earth.
Comet 3I/ATLAS is an interstellar comet that was discovered passing through our Solar System on 1 July 2025.
It's the oldest comet ever discovered, likely even older than our own Sun.
It formed beyond our Solar System in another part of the Galaxy – making it an interstellar comet – and is merely passing through our cosmic neighbourhood.
Comet 3I/ATLAS is one of only three such objects ever discovered.
The image here was captured by the Juice spacecraft's science camera, named JANUS, on 6 November 2025, seven days after the comet made its closest approach to the Sun.
At the time the image was taken, Juice was about 66 million km away from the comet.
The image follows a previous image of 3I/ATLAS by Juice released in November 2025. That image was captured with Juice's Navigation Camera, whose primary purpose is enabling the spacecraft to navigate the Jovian system.
This time, however, Juice was able to use its science camera, giving mission scientists the chance to gather key data on the interstellar comet.
In the JANUS image below, arrows have been added to show the direction the comet was moving (blue) and the direction of the Sun (yellow).
The inset image shows the same data, but processed to highlight the coma structure.
Juice's comet observations
During November 2025, scientists say Juice used five of its science instruments to observe 3I/ATLAS, namely its JANUS, MAJIS, SWI, PEP and UVS instruments.
The data acquired is helping scientists understand what the comet is made of and how it behaved as it got closer to the Sun and heated up.
After its observations, Juice was on the opposite side of the Sun to Earth, shielding itself from the heat and therefore not able to send data back to Earth as quickly.
The science teams had to wait until late February to receive Juice's 3I/ATLAS data.
JANUS took over 120 images of 3I/ATLAS across a large wavelength range.
MAJIS and UVS gathered spectrometry data, using light to reveal more about the comet's chemical composition.
SWI gathered data on the comet's composition and PEP captured particle data.
The European Space Agency says its science teams are still working on Juice's 3I/ATLAS data, and there could be many more discoveries to come.
