New Delhi: A number of NASA spacecraft across the Solar System have observed the interstellar comet 3I/Atlas. The observations were around the time of the closest approach to the Sun towards October end. NASA’s Lucy spacecraft en route to observe the Trojan Asteroids captured by Jupiter observed 3I/Atlas from a distance of 386 million km. The operators had to carefully orient the spacecraft to shield the sensitive instruments while the imaging instrument was pointed towards the comet. A pair of orbiters at Mars, Maven and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter both observed 3I/Atlas, with the Perseverance rover on the surface of the Red Planet capturing a faint smudge on its camera.

NASA’s new Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH) mission in orbit around the Earth is a hel

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