JUICE Webinar: Observing 3I/ATLAS: JUICE’s Close Encounter with an Interstellar Visitor

3I/ATLAS, the third known interstellar object to pass through our solar system, was discovered in early July 2025. The object already exhibited clear cometary activity, making its perihelion on 29 October 2025—at ~1.38 AU from the Sun—a prime opportunity to study this interstellar visitor and its activity. However, observations from the ground at that time were difficult because of its trajectory and low solar elongation.  Fortunately, JUICE was ideally positioned and equipped to observe the object in November, making it the closest spacecraft to 3I/ATLAS during this period. Thanks to the flexibility and dedication of the JUICE instrument and operations teams, an observation campaign was rapidly organised, lasting over three weeks and involving several payload instruments in addition to the navigation camera (NAVCAM). The JUICE scientific camera JANUS, together with NAVCAM, provided invaluable data on this interstellar visitor, some of which will be presented during this webinar.

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