In October 2025, three of NASA's Mars spacecraft captured images of comet 3I/ATLAS, showing what this mysterious interstellar object looks like from the surface of another world.
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured a close-up view of 3I/ATLAS, while the MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN) spacecraft imaged the comet in ultraviolet light.
More on 3I/ATLAS
And NASA's Perseverance rover captured 3I/ATLAS from the surface of Mars, too.
The images were captured while 3I/ATLAS was behind the Sun from our perspective on Earth, enabling scientists to keep an eye on the comet while it was otherwise unobservable.
A comet from another star system
Unlike the vast majority of comets that we see from Earth, 3I/ATLAS didn't form within our Solar System.
It formed elsewhere in the Galaxy, and is merely passing through our Solar System.
Once it has left our Solar System, it will be gone from our view forever.
While it's here, scientists have been pointing our most powerful telescopes at it, in order to find out more about its shape, size, chemical composition and trajectory.
NASA's fleet of solar missions were able to capture images of 3I/ATLAS while it was close to the Sun.
And the European Space Agency's Trace Gas Orbiter at Mars was able to image the interstellar comet too.
Now NASA has released new images of 3I/ATLAS captured by its own spacecraft at Mars. Here's what they show.
MAVEN
MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) captured images of 3I/ATLAS over a period of 10 days starting 27 September 2025, using its Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph (IUVS) camera.
The IUVS instrument caught multiple views of the comet in different wavelengths, and gave scientists high-resolution ultraviolet images that enabled the identification of hydrogen at the comet.
You can find out more about what the spacecraft found in our report on MAVEN's view of 3I/ATLAS.
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
On 2 October 2025, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured views of 3I/ATLAS from a distance of 30 million kilometres (19 million miles), which is one of the closest views we're likely to get of the comet.
MRO used its HiRISE (the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) camera to view the comet, which was something of a departure from the norm for the spacecraft.
HiRISE was designed to observe the Martian surface, but on this occasion the camera was pointed upwards to observe 3I/ATLAS.
The HiRISE image shows the comet's fuzzy coma, which is the cloud of dust and gas released as the frozen interstellar object gets closer to the Sun.
Mission scientists say the HiRISE imagery could help them estimate the size of the comet’s nucleus and pinpoint the size and colour of particles within the coma.
"Observations of interstellar objects are still rare enough that we learn something new on every occasion," says Shane Byrne, HiRISE principal investigator at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
"We’re fortunate that 3I/ATLAS passed this close to Mars."
"One of MRO’s biggest contributions to NASA’s work on Mars has been watching surface phenomena that only HiRISE can see," says MRO’s project scientist Leslie Tamppari of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
"This is one of those occasions where we get to study a passing space object as well."
Perseverance
Even NASA's Perseverance rover, far below on the surface of Mars, was able to catch a glimpse of 3I/ATLAS as it flew by the Red Planet.
The rover captured an image of the comet on 4 October 2025, using its Mastcam-Z camera.
NASA says Perseverance had to capture a long exposure in order to be able to pick out the comet from so far away.
In order to do so, Mastcam-Z had to stay fixed on the comet as it moved across the sky, which is why the background stars appear like streaks of light.
Even then, however, 3I/ATLAS is difficult to see in the images.
Nevertheless, Perseverance's image adds to the ever-growing collection of images and data that are enabling scientists to unlock the secrets of this interstellar visitor.
