China's Mars orbiter snaps historic images of interstellar comet

Technology Nov 07, 2025

China's Tianwen-1 Mars orbiter just captured some pretty special photos of comet 3I/ATLAS as it cruised by Mars.
This is a big deal because 3I/ATLAS is only the third known visitor from another solar system to swing through ours, after 'Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov—so moments like this don't come around often.

Tianwen-1 tracked the comet's path

Between October 1 and 4, Tianwen-1 tracked the comet's path, managing to snap a key image on October 3 from about 18 million miles away—even though the comet was both faint and moving fast.
These images add to China's growing record in space exploration; remember, this is the same mission that landed the Zhurong rover on Mars back in 2021.