TUCSON, Ariz. (KVOA) - At the start of October, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), equipped with the University of Arizona-led HiRISE camera, captured images of comet 3I/ATLAS, marking only the third interstellar object observed in our solar system. This observation was made possible as the comet passed 19 million miles from Mars, according to a news release.

HiRISE captured the comet's coma, a cloud of dust and ice, at a scale of roughly 19 miles per pixel. This imagery is expected to provide insights into the comet's nucleus and its surrounding particles.

Tomás Díaz de la Rubia, senior vice president for research and partnerships at the University of Arizona, highlighted the significance of this achievement. The capture of a visitor from another star system from a University of

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