Suggested Searches

At the center of the image is a comet that appears as a teardrop-shaped bluish cocoon of dust coming off the comet’s solid, icy nucleus and seen against a black background. The comet appears to be heading to the bottom left corner of the image. About a dozen short, light blue diagonal streaks are seen scattered across the image, which are from background stars that appeared to move during the exposure because the telescope was tracking the moving comet.

Comet 3I/ATLAS

Hubble captured this image of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS on July 21, 2025, when the comet was 277 million miles from Earth. Hubble shows that the comet has a teardrop-shaped cocoon of dust coming off its solid, icy nucleus.

Image Credit: Image: NASA, ESA, David Jewitt (UCLA); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)
Download
Image CreditImage: NASA, ESA, David Jewitt (UCLA); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)
Size1546x1140px