In an awesome space-based surprise, China's Tianwen-1 orbiter has sent back intriguing photos of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, taken from the orbit of Mars. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.

For those just joining the story of our interstellar visitor, on July 1 this year astronomers at the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) spotted an object moving through the Solar System at around 58 kilometers per second (36 miles per second). With a lot of telescopes turned towards the object, it was soon determined to be a comet, and a pretty interesting one at that.

Now designated 3I/ATLAS, the object is known to be an interstellar comet, which may be a 10-billion-year-old time capsule from another age of the un

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