NASA to Share Comet 3I/ATLAS Images From Spacecraft, Telescopes
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NASA will host a live event at 3 p.m. EST on Wednesday, November 19, to share images of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS collected by a number of the agency’s missions. The event will take place at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Comet 3I/ATLAS, discovered July 1 by the NASA-funded Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) Observatory, is only the third object ever identified as entering our solar system from elsewhere in the galaxy. Although it poses no threat to Earth and will not come closer than 170 million kilometers from Earth, the comet flew within 19 million kilometers of Mars in early October.
The event will be streamed on NASA+, the NASA app, the agency’s website and YouTube channel, and Amazon Prime.
Briefing participants include:
- Amit Kshatriya, NASA Associate Administrator
- Nicky Fox, Associate Administrator, Science Mission Directorate
- Shawn Domagal-Goldman, Acting Director, Division of Astrophysics
- Tom Statler, lead scientist for small solar system bodies
To participate virtually in the NASA Live event, media members must send their full name, media affiliation, email address and phone number no later than two hours before the start of the event to Molly Wasser at: molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov. Members of the public can also ask questions, which can be answered in real time during the broadcast, using the hashtag #AskNASA on social media.
The strengths of NASA’s science missions give the United States the unique ability to observe 3I/ATLAS almost the entire time it spends in our celestial neighborhood and to study – with complementary science instruments and from different directions – the comet’s behavior. These assets include both spacecraft across the solar system, as well as ground-based observatories.
For more information on 3I/ATLAS, visit:
https://go.nasa.gov/3I-ATLAS
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Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov
