Hubble Image of Comet 3I/ATLAS (IMAGE)

NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

Hubble Image of Comet 3I/ATLAS

Caption

This is a Hubble Space Telescope image of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS. Hubble photographed the comet on July 21, 2025, when the comet was 277 million miles from Earth. Hubble shows that the comet has a teardrop-shaped cocoon of dust coming off its solid, icy nucleus. Because Hubble was tracking the comet moving along a hyperbolic trajectory, the stationary background stars are streaked in the exposure.

Credit

NASA, ESA, David Jewitt (UCLA); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

Usage Restrictions

No restrictions.

License

Public Domain

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