Two spacecrafts on Mars captured new images of the interstellar comet 3i/Atlas In the closest view than the European Space Agency (ESA) will obtain the mysterious object, according to a ESA declaration.
The comet, from a stellar system unknown far beyond oursCurrently performs a one -month tour in the internal solar system. He approached as close as possible to Mars Friday (October 3) before a close meeting with the sun October 30. During her recent overflight of the Red Planet, the comet appeared at the sight of the Fleet of Robotic Explorers of ESA and NASA, in particular the Orbiter Exomars Trace Gas Orbit (TGO) and the Mars Express orbiter of ESA.
Sencing 30 million kilometers above us, the comet proved to be too low for Mars Express to capture it. However, the Exomars TGO satellite managed to capture a series of images, which ESA has combined in an animated GIF. The animation shows the comet – visible in the form of a blurred and bright point – descending towards the center of the image while it moves from March to an estimated speed of 130,000 MPH (210,000 km/h).
What can we see?
The brilliant point represents the core of the comet (the icy rock ball which constitutes the body of the comet) and its coma (the nebulous cloud of gas which escapes from the nucleus when it warms). As the comets approach the sun, the ice on their surface is sublimated in gas, which makes the coma larger and more brilliant. According to NASA. The pressure of the incoming solar wind can also hunt the gas and dust of the coma far from the sun, giving the comets their Distinctive tails.
Since TGO was designed to monitor the Martian surface just a few hundred kilometers away, its instruments are not the best to record distant and fast objects like 3i/Atlas, ESA officials noted.
“The comet is around 10,000 to 100,000 times lower than our usual target”, Nick ThomasMain researcher of the Exomar -style color and surface stereo imaging system, said in the press release. Therefore, no tail is visible on the new images. But that does not mean that the comet does not have it; As 3i/Atlas gets closer to the sun, its coma and its tail are likely to grow and have fun, added ESA officials.
For the moment, the new images do not reveal any new information on this particular object, but ESA will continue to analyze the images of its two Mars satellites in the hope of obtaining new data on the possible size and composition of the comet.
He remains uncertain if one of the Rovers or satellites dedicated to Mars of NASA also spotted the comet during her close approach, because the agency suspended all public communications during the current closure of the United States government. However, a raw image captured by the right navigation camera of the Rover Perseverance on October 4 shows a brilliant and striated object in the sky It may be the 3i/Atlas comet, according to the partner site of Live Science Espace.com. No official image information has been published.
3i/Atlas is the third interstellar object never confirmed – after 1i/’Oumaumua And 2i/Borissov – And seems to be the largest to date, with estimates placing it between 3 and 7 miles (5 to 11 km) wide. His speed and trajectory suggest that he has been traveling the galaxy for billions of years and that he is probably much older than the sun.
The comet is currently moving on the other side of the sun, out of the sight of the earth, but it will become visible to the ground telescopes in early December. The comet will go beyond Jupiter in March 2026, before leaving our solar system definitively.
