Veteran comet hunters have called G3 (ATLAS) the “Great Comet of 2025” due to its daytime visibility and spectacular nighttime sightings. In these gorgeous photos from the Paranal Observatory, it’s not hard to see why.
Photographer Yuri Beletsky caught comet G3 (ATLAS) looking almost like a watercolor painting, ESO wrote in a statement accompanying Beletsky’s photo. The scene was captured on Jan. 19 beside one of the auxiliary telescopes that contribute to ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer, a system of four telescopes working in unison.