Europe’s Trace Gas Orbiter circling Mars gets images of interstellar Comet 3I/Atlas
Using Europe’s Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) that is in orbit around Mars, engineers have obtained images of the interstellar Comet 3I/Atlas.
The image to the right is a screen capture of the last image in a movie they created from all the pictures. I have added the arrow to indicate the comet, which underlines the fact that these images really don’t tell us that much about the comet itself. It is hardly more than a few pixels across, with no real detail resolved. However, the data has still been found useful.
Until September, figuring out the location and trajectory of 3I/ATLAS relied on Earth-based telescopes. Then between 1 and 7 October, ESA’s ExoMars TGO turned its eyes towards the interstellar comet from its orbit around Mars. The comet passed relatively close to Mars, approaching to about 29 million km during its closest phase on 3 October.
The Mars probe got about ten times closer to 3I/ATLAS than telescopes on Earth and it observed the comet from a new viewing angle. The triangulation of its data with data from Earth helped to make the comet’s predicted path much more accurate.
While the scientists initially anticipated a modest improvement, the result was an impressive ten-fold leap in accuracy, reducing the uncertainty of the object’s location.
All the data continues to confirm that 3I/Atlas is nothing more than comet, though like all comets unique in its own way. This refined location data will also improve the on-going observations of Europe’s Jupiter probe Juice, presently on its way to Jupiter and in the best position to see 3I/Atlas.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Using Europe’s Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) that is in orbit around Mars, engineers have obtained images of the interstellar Comet 3I/Atlas.
The image to the right is a screen capture of the last image in a movie they created from all the pictures. I have added the arrow to indicate the comet, which underlines the fact that these images really don’t tell us that much about the comet itself. It is hardly more than a few pixels across, with no real detail resolved. However, the data has still been found useful.
Until September, figuring out the location and trajectory of 3I/ATLAS relied on Earth-based telescopes. Then between 1 and 7 October, ESA’s ExoMars TGO turned its eyes towards the interstellar comet from its orbit around Mars. The comet passed relatively close to Mars, approaching to about 29 million km during its closest phase on 3 October.
The Mars probe got about ten times closer to 3I/ATLAS than telescopes on Earth and it observed the comet from a new viewing angle. The triangulation of its data with data from Earth helped to make the comet’s predicted path much more accurate.
While the scientists initially anticipated a modest improvement, the result was an impressive ten-fold leap in accuracy, reducing the uncertainty of the object’s location.
All the data continues to confirm that 3I/Atlas is nothing more than comet, though like all comets unique in its own way. This refined location data will also improve the on-going observations of Europe’s Jupiter probe Juice, presently on its way to Jupiter and in the best position to see 3I/Atlas.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News



Interestingly, the apparently anomalous behaviour of 3I/Atlas is explained, even predicted, by the evidence that the comet is traveling through solar plasma fields. See this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqCxWRZgx1c
Why does a Musk fanboi need money?
I think you posted in the wrong thread
2026: experts are confident the objects settling into high Earth orbit are perfectly natural
2027: all hail our new intergalactic overlords
I’m still waiting to see what HiRISE was able to image — https://avi-loeb.medium.com/hirise-images-of-3i-atlas-are-expected-to-be-released-in-a-few-days-c2974eb67063 — possibly the best and most detailed shots of 3I/Atlas that we are likely to see.
L. E. Joiner is not alone in wondering why *any* discussion of cometary interaction with solar plasma / electrical fields remains verboten within mainstream circles. Even if the posited mechanism is not “real,” the plasma hypothesis explains so much observed behavior — as in the case of 3I/Atlas — that is not adequately explained by standard theory that it is worth a look. As always, the observed anomalous data is “telling” us something, even if we do not know quite what it is.
And, no, you do not have to “believe in” Velikovsky’s theory that Jupiter coughed up Venus like a giant hairball to terrorize the ancient Egyptians and sundry other civilizations of that era in order to think that such large scale electrical phenomena might exist.