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Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS: A Visitor from Beyond the Solar System

Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS on November 16, 2025: How to Watch Tonight’s Livestream, What’s New from ESA & NASA, and Where to Find It in the Sky

Published: November 16, 2025 Summary (today): A free global livestream will show interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS racing away from the Sun late Sunday, Nov. 16 (11:15 p.m. ET / 04:15 GMT on Nov. 17). ESA just tightened the comet’s trajectory using Mars-orbiter data, and NASA has updated distance/visibility guidance. On the observing side, the comet is a telescope target (~mag 10) low in Virgo before dawn. TheSkyLive+4Space+4The Virtual Telescope Project 2.0+4 What’s happening today (Nov. 16) The latest science headlines you should know When and where to look (practical guide) What NASA and ESA say about the trajectory Don’t confuse it
16 November 2025
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Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS Shrouded in CO₂ Fog – NASA’s SPHEREx Reveals a Cosmic Visitor’s Secrets

Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS on 14 November 2025: New ESA Orbit, Fresh Spectra, Politics, Alien Hype – and How to See It

Updated: 14 November 2025 Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS has roared back into the headlines today, with new orbital data from Mars, a first detailed optical/IR portrait, political pressure on NASA over unreleased images, and yet another round of speculation about whether it might be an alien craft. At the same time, guides published today show that 3I/ATLAS is finally creeping back into pre‑dawn view for Northern Hemisphere observers, though it will stay a telescopic target only. The Economic Times+1 Here’s a clear, reality‑based look at what’s actually new on 14 November 2025, how you can observe this rare visitor, and why
14 November 2025
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Space Industry Roars Amid Shutdown Drama: NASA Halts Ops as ESA, SpaceX, Blue Origin, China Make Headlines

Space Industry Roars Amid Shutdown Drama: NASA Halts Ops as ESA, SpaceX, Blue Origin, China Make Headlines

Key Facts: In-Depth Report: NASA and U.S. Space Policy: Shutdown Halts Many Operations On Oct. 1, 2025, the U.S. government lapsed into a funding shutdown as federal appropriations ran out. All NASA civil servants (about 15,000 employees) were furloughed, and many agency offices and web services went offline. NASA’s Science Mission Directorate warned that proposal deadlines and solicitations would be set to “TBD” until funding is restored. SpaceFlight Now reports NASA officials immediately rebutted a critical Senate report – one claiming the agency was “illegally” relying on an unapproved budget blueprint – calling those allegations false. In practice, NASA says
2 October 2025
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Fly Through the Milky Way: ESA’s Stunning New 3D Galaxy Map Lets You Tour Our Galaxy

Fly Through the Milky Way: ESA’s Stunning New 3D Galaxy Map Lets You Tour Our Galaxy

Background: Mapping the Milky Way with Gaia Launching on 19 December 2013, the ESA’s Gaia spacecraft set out to chart our Milky Way in unprecedented detail ucl.ac.uk. Stationed at the stable L2 point about 1.5 million km from Earth – the same deep-space neighborhood as NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope – Gaia had a very different mission: to survey our own galaxy rather than peering at the distant universe earthsky.org. Over more than a decade, Gaia repeatedly scanned the sky with a billion-pixel camera, measuring the position, brightness, and motion of billions of stars multiple times earthsky.org earthsky.org. This technique
22 September 2025
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Scanning the Canopy: ESA’s Biomass Radar Craft Maps Global Forest Carbon with P‑Band Vision

Scanning the Canopy: ESA’s Biomass Radar Craft Maps Global Forest Carbon with P‑Band Vision

Biomass was selected in May 2013 as ESA’s seventh Earth Explorer mission to quantify forest carbon from space. The mission uses a P-band synthetic aperture radar at ~435 MHz (about 70 cm wavelength) with a 12-meter mesh reflector deployed in orbit to penetrate canopies and sense trunks. It employs fully polarimetric SAR (HH, HV, VH, VV) and SAR tomography to produce three-dimensional maps of forest structure and above-ground biomass. Biomass launched on 29 April 2025 aboard a Vega-C rocket (flight VV26) into a 666 km sun-synchronous orbit, carrying a ~1.25-tonne observatory. The project aims for wall-to-wall global biomass maps, delivering
27 June 2025
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Umbrella in Orbit: ESA’s BIOMASS Satellite Lifts Earth’s Green Veil, Revealing Hidden Carbon Stores and Jaw‑Dropping First Images

X-Ray Vision for Forests: ESA’s Biomass Satellite and the P-Band Radar Revolution in Carbon Accounting

The ESA Biomass satellite, launched on April 29, 2025, carries the first P-band synthetic aperture radar (435 MHz) to map the world’s forests in 3D and quantify their carbon content. The mission uses a 12-meter deployable antenna—the largest radar antenna ever flown—to enable detection of biomass changes as small as 10–20 tons per hectare. Biomass operates in a polar Sun-synchronous orbit at about 666 km altitude for a five-year lifespan, scanning tropical, temperate, and boreal forests globally. The long-wavelength P-band radar (about 70 cm) penetrates dense foliage to measure forest height, volume, and biomass from canopy to trunk to ground.
25 June 2025
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Umbrella in Orbit: ESA’s BIOMASS Satellite Lifts Earth’s Green Veil, Revealing Hidden Carbon Stores and Jaw‑Dropping First Images

Umbrella in Orbit: ESA’s BIOMASS Satellite Lifts Earth’s Green Veil, Revealing Hidden Carbon Stores and Jaw‑Dropping First Images

BIOMASS uses a fully polarimetric P-band SAR with a 70 cm wavelength to pierce through canopies and measure woody trunks where most forest carbon is stored. The 12-meter deployable reflector, shaped like an umbrella and built by L3Harris, directs radar pulses back to the sensor. The 1.25-tonne spacecraft was launched on 29 April 2025 aboard a Vega-C rocket from Kourou into a 666 km sun-synchronous orbit (flight VV26). The gold-colored reflector unfurled in orbit on 7 May 2025, marking a key commissioning milestone. First images show colour-coded maps of the Amazon, Indonesia, and the bedrock of the Sahara. By combining
24 June 2025
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Unlocking the Sun: Inside NASA and ESA’s Daring Missions to Touch the Solar Inferno

Unlocking the Sun: Inside NASA and ESA’s Daring Missions to Touch the Solar Inferno

Parker Solar Probe, launched August 12, 2018 on a Delta IV Heavy, became NASA’s first mission to fly through the Sun’s corona and “touch the Sun” in April 2021 when it crossed the Alfvén critical boundary during its 8th orbit. At its closest approaches Parker reaches about 3.8–4 million miles (6.2 million km) from the Sun, roughly 9 solar radii, traveling faster than 430,000 mph (700,000 km/h). The probe’s heat shield is a 4.5-inch-thick carbon-composite foam sandwich that keeps instruments near room temperature while the shield surface heats to about 2,500°F (1,377°C). Parker carries four instrument suites—FIELDS, SWEAP, IS☉IS, and
8 June 2025
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