ESA is turning its Mars and Jupiter-bound spacecraft into comet hunters in an unprecedented interstellar chase. The target: 3I/ATLAS, only the third known interstellar visitor, streaking through our solar system at 219,000 km/h.
Discovered in July 2025 by Chile’s ATLAS telescope, 3I/ATLAS can be tracked by ground-based observatories until September. But as it swings close to the Sun, it will vanish from Earth’s view—and that’s when ESA’s fleet steps in.
From October 1–7, Mars Express and the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter will observe the comet near Mars, with a flyby distance of 30 million kilometers on October 3. Later, during its peak activity around perihelion (November 2–25), ESA’s JUICE probe will take the lead, joined by NASA’s Psyche mission and orbiters like Tianwen-1.
This coordinated effort will capture 3I/ATLAS’s chemical fingerprint, comparing it to solar system comets. As scientist T. Marshall Eubanks notes, these insights could reshape our view of how material travels between star systems, offering clues about the building blocks of planets across the galaxy.
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ESA uses Mars, Jupiter missions to track interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS
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