Hera And Europa Clipper Will Pass Through 3I/ATLAS' Tail

3I/ATLAS with its tail, which could eventually be directly detected by Europa Clipper or Hera. Credit - International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/Shadow the Scientist

All sorts of crazy things have been suggested regarding 3I/ATLAS, the third known interstellar object that we’ve discovered. Some are simply conspiracy theories about it being an alien spacecraft, while others have been well-thought out suggestions, like using Martian-based probes to observe the comet as it streaked past the red planet. A new paper pre-published on arXiv and accepted for publication by the Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society by Samuel Grand and Geraint Jones, of the Finnish Meteorological Institute and ESA respectively, falls into the latter category, and suggests utilizing two spacecraft already en route to their separate destinations to potentially detect ions from the object’s spectacular tail that has formed as it approaches the Sun.

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