As a visitor from another solar system made its closest approach to Mars on Friday, two spacecraft in orbit around the Red Planet turned to look.

The European Space Agency's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter and Mars Express took photos of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS as it passed within 19 million miles in space . That might seem extremely far, but astronomers say it's a closeup on the cosmic scale.

Only one of them got lucky during the photo session.

What makes 3I/ATLAS special is that it didn't come from the vast population of comets that circle the sun . It's a true outsider, born around another star in the Milky Way and later flung out of its home system, maybe by a giant planet or star. After wandering for hundreds of millions of years, this icy traveler has fin

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