ALT A dark image with faint bands of colored light and a tiny pale blue dot near the right edge, representing Earth as seen from space in the famous "Pale Blue Dot" photograph taken by Voyager 1.

ALT On a dark background, interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS appears as a pale smudge with a whitish core. A cloud of haze extends slightly from the comet toward the bottom left of the image and, to a lesser extent, toward the right side of the image. The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured this image on Oct. 2, 2025. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

ALT A blurry, black and white image shows a faint, glowing spot in the center surrounded by a hazy, diffuse area. The image, from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, shows interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS on Oct. 2, 2025. At the time it was imaged, the comet was about 0.2 astronomical units (19 million miles, or 30 million kilometers) from the spacecraft. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona