"Scientists were initially unsure whether either orbiter's cameras would detect the comet at all. Both are designed to photograph Mars' bright, rocky surface from just a few hundred to a few thousand miles away, not to capture a dim object tens of millions of miles distant. 'This was a very challenging observation for the instrument,' said Nick Thomas, principal investigator of the CaSSIS camera."
"The visible coma suggested that 3I/ATLAS i s beginning to heat up as sunlight reaches its surface, causing ice to vaporize and release dust, which gives comets their ghostly appearance. Originating from outside our Solar System, 3I/ATLAS is only the third interstellar comet ever seen, following 1I/ʻOumuamua in 2017 and 2I/Borisov in 2019. 'These comets are absolutely foreign,' the ESA shared on Tuesday,"
3I/ATLAS passed within 18.6 million miles of Mars on October 3 and was imaged by the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) using the CaSSIS camera. The object appeared as a tiny, blurry white dot with an indistinguishable icy nucleus and surrounding coma, whose faint glow was visible against space. The visible coma indicates ice is vaporizing and releasing dust as sunlight heats the object. Orbiter cameras faced detection challenges because they are optimized for close, bright Martian targets while the comet was tens of millions of miles away and far fainter. 3I/ATLAS is the third known interstellar comet and may carry clues about distant world formation.
Read at Mail Online
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