Aggiornamento da ESA. Anche Juice proverà a osservare 3I/ATLAS.
Estratti dal thread che comincia qui:
Juice has recently reached its closest approach to the Sun and is now moving again away from our star. That means we’re getting closer to the end of the very hot phase, but the spacecraft will still remain in what the team calls “medium hot cruise”. […]
Despite heading toward Earth, the distance to our planet is still increasing and will reach its maximum only in mid-January 2026, before Juice gets closer again to meet Earth in September next year. Driving spacecraft through space is no easy feat. Juice is currently over 200 million km away from Earth with a one-way signal travel time for commands of almost 13 minutes.
Beginning of November, Juice will attempt to observe comet #3I/Atlas over a period of four weeks. The team plans on using several instruments, including cameras, spectrometers and a particle sensor. Given Juice is still close to the Sun, it’s using its main high-gain antenna as a heat shield. It will be sending data back to Earth using its smaller medium-gain antenna, It is also far from Earth, on the other side of the Sun. For all these reasons, we don’t expect to receive Juice’s observations of 3I/ATLAS until February 2026. It is a long wait indeed, but it’s a big space out there.