3I/ATLAS: Avi Loeb Decodes Fresh Pics Clicked By ESA Probe JUICE Enroute To Jupiter’s Icy Moons

The European Space Agency (ESA)’s probe JUICE (Jupiter’s Icy Moon Explorer), which is enroute to the icy moons of Jupiter, caught a preview of the interstellar interloper 3I/ATLAS. The space agency in its latest update mentioned that during November, JUICE deployed all its five instruments to gather information about the exocomet that has created all the buzz since its discovery on July 01, 2025.
The data will not arrive on Earth until February, so it's a bummer, earthlings have to wait. But fret not, the Navigation Camera (NavCam) onboard the probe clicked a grainy portrait of 3I/ATLAS. The NavCam is not a hi-res instrument but rather just a navigation assistant for JUICE in its exploration of the icy moons of the gas giants. JUICE will arrive around the jovian planet not before 2031.
ESA remarked
The image was taken on 2 November 2025, during Juice’s first slot for observing 3I/ATLAS. It was two days before Juice’s closest approach to the comet, which occurred on 4 November at a distance of about 66 million km.
ESA further remarked in its update
We expect to receive the data from the five scientific instruments switched on during the observations – JANUS, MAJIS, UVS, SWI and PEP – on 18 and 20 February 2026. The delay is because Juice is currently using its main high-gain antenna as a heat shield to protect it from the Sun, leaving its smaller medium-gain antenna to send data back to Earth at a much lower rate.
Meanwhile Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb remarked on the fresh ESA pictures
The image displays a glowing halo of gas and dust (coma) surrounding 3I/ATLAS with a hint of two tails.
He added
The fact that 3I/ATLAS will arrive at Jupiter in March 2026 whereas Juice will only get there in July 2031 after their rendezvous in November 2025, illustrates how much faster is this interstellar visitor compared to a human-made spacecraft.
See Also: 3I/ATLAS: Observatory That First Spotted Exocomet Compares The 3 Interstellar Objects Ever To Enter Solar System
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