{"id":237113,"date":"2026-05-14T02:30:53","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T07:30:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/05\/dual-spacecraft-capture-both-hemispheres-of-interstellar-comet-3i-atlas-at-once"},"modified":"2026-05-14T02:30:53","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T07:30:53","slug":"dual-spacecraft-capture-both-hemispheres-of-interstellar-comet-3i-atlas-at-once","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/05\/dual-spacecraft-capture-both-hemispheres-of-interstellar-comet-3i-atlas-at-once","title":{"rendered":"Dual spacecraft capture both hemispheres of interstellar comet 3I\/ATLAS at once"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/dual-spacecraft-capture-both-hemispheres-of-interstellar-comet-3i-atlas-at-once2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Southwest Research Institute-led Ultraviolet Spectrograph (UVS) instruments aboard ESA\u2019s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) spacecraft and NASA\u2019s Europa Clipper made unique observations of interstellar comet 3I\/ATLAS in late 2025. SwRI leads the UVS instruments on both spacecraft, simultaneously imaging both hemispheres of the comet and detecting the comet\u2019s ultraviolet emissions.<\/p>\n<p>Only the third recognized interstellar object, 3I\/ATLAS, entered our solar system in July of 2025.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs the comet passed between Juice and Europa Clipper, we were able to informally coordinate observations between the two spacecraft,\u201d said Dr. Kurt Retherford, the principal investigator of Juice-UVS and Europa-UVS. \u201cCrucially, we observed hydrogen, oxygen and carbon emissions. These elements are produced when gases escaping the comet\u2019s nucleus break apart into atoms when exposed to sunlight.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Southwest Research Institute-led Ultraviolet Spectrograph (UVS) instruments aboard ESA\u2019s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) spacecraft and NASA\u2019s Europa Clipper made unique observations of interstellar comet 3I\/ATLAS in late 2025. SwRI leads the UVS instruments on both spacecraft, simultaneously imaging both hemispheres of the comet and detecting the comet\u2019s ultraviolet emissions. Only the third recognized [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-237113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-particle-physics","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237113\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}