Comet C/2024 G3 ATLAS | International Space Station

Comet C/2024 G3 ATLAS | International Space Station

Comet C/2024 G3 ATLAS seems to be near Earth's horizon though it is over 305 million miles away in this photograph taken by NASA astronaut and Expedition 72 Flight Engineer Don Pettit. The International Space Station was orbiting into a sunrise 258 miles above the Pacific Ocean.

C/2024 G3 ATLAS is a long-period, sungrazing comet. It reached perihelion (closest approach to the Sun) on January 13, 2025, at a distance of 0.09 AU from the Sun. It could become the brightest comet of 2025, possibly exceeding an apparent magnitude of −3.5.

The comet was discovered by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) survey on April 5, 2024, in images obtained with a 0.5-m reflector telescope located in Río Hurtado, Chile.

Learn more:
https://fallingstar.com
https://science.nasa.gov/planetary-defense-overview/

Expedition 72 Updates:

https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/

Expedition 72 Crew

Station Commander: Suni Williams
Roscosmos (Russia) Flight Engineers: Alexey Ovchinin, Ivan Vagner, Aleksandr Gorbunov
NASA Flight Engineers: Butch Wilmore, Don Pettit, Nick Hague

An international partnership of space agencies provides and operates the elements of the International Space Station (ISS). The principals are the space agencies of the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan, and Canada.

Image Credit: NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC)/D. Pettit
Image Date: Jan. 10, 2025

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