Andy has been interested in space exploration ever since reading Pale Blue Dot in middle school. An engineer by training, he likes to focus on the practical challenges of space exploration, whether that's getting rid of perchlorates on Mars or making ultra-smooth mirrors to capture ever clearer data.
It's quick and easy to access Live Science Plus, simply enter your email below. We'll send you a confirmation and sign you up for our daily newsletter, keeping you up to date with the latest science news.
Newly discovered comet 'Lemmon' may be visible to the naked eye this month — but it will look more like a limeStunning 'sun dogs' could sparkle in alien skies, James Webb Space Telescope suggests Image Processing: Jen Miller & Mahdi Zamani ), 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 andrespectively, 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. Hera is on its way to Didymos-Dimorphos, the binary asteroid that was impacted by the DART mission in 2022. Europa Clipper, as its name suggests, is on its way to Europa, one of Jupiter's four Galilean moons, intending to study its ice.Comet 3I/ATLAS is unusually 'active', earliest NASA observations reveal But, as luck would have it, both spacecraft are going to pass"downwind" of 3I/IATLAS in the next two weeks. Hera will have a window between October 25th and November 1st, whereas Europa Clipper will have a window between October 30th and November 6th. A few weeks isn't a whole lot of time to set up a rapid experiment to run a test that neither spacecraft were designed for. But sometimes science means doing the best with what you have, and in this case, these two spacecraft are our best bet to study the tail of an interstellar comet. That tail has been consistently growing since the comet's discovery in early June. Recent reports of its"gushing" water indicate how massive the tail has become, leaving a wake of water particles, but potentially more importantly, ions, behind it. The comet also recently moved out of view from Earth-based systems, though assumedly its tail will continue to grow until it reaches perihelion on October 29th. As the paper explains, ending up in part of its tail isn't as simple as passing directly behind it as it moves through the solar system - the solar wind pushes the particles out farther from the Sun, following a curved path away from the comet. The speed at which the wind hits those particles plays a major role in where they would be, and therefore where exactly the spacecraft would have to pass through to collect data on the tail directly.Get the world’s most fascinating discoveries delivered straight to your inbox.Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors To make those estimates, the authors used a model called"Tailcatcher" that estimates where the path of the cometary ions will go based on different wind speeds. It then calculated the"minimum miss distance" for a given spacecraft for the central axis of the comet's tail. Unfortunately, the model is only as accurate as the solar wind data, which typically is only collected definitively ex post facto - and certainly not enough time to help with this potential mission objective. Even with the best estimates of the program, the two spacecraft would be millions of km away from the central axis - around 8.2 million for Hera and 8 million for Europa Clipper. However, that is still within range of being able to collect data on the ions from the tail directly as they can spread over millions of kilometers from very active comets like 3I/ATLAS. Comet 3I/ATLAS is losing water 'like a fire hose' on full blast, 'rewriting what we thought we knew' about alien star systemsThe downside of this plan is that at least one of the spacecraft - Hera - doesn't have any instruments that could potentially detect either the ions expected in the tail, nor the magnetic"draping structure" that characterizes what the comet's atmosphere does to thecarried by the solar wind. However, Europa Clipper does - it's plasma instrument and magnetometer are exactly what would be needed to directly detect those ions and magnetic field changes. Acting on this bit of serendipity is difficult to say the least - but it's also very time constrained. It's unclear whether the mission controllers for Hera, or perhaps more importantly, Europa Clipper, will see the message in time to do anything about their potential journey through the coma. But if they do, they might be the first in human history to directly sample and interstellar comet's tail - and wouldn't that be something to brag about that had nothing to do with their original intended mission? in middle school. An engineer by training, he likes to focus on the practical challenges of space exploration, whether that's getting rid of perchlorates on Mars or making ultra-smooth mirrors to capture ever clearer data. When not writing or engineering things he can be found entertaining his wife, four children, six cats, and two dogs, or running in circles to stay in shape.New report warns that China could overtake the US as top nation in space — and it could happen 'in 5-10 years,' expert claims 'Near stationary' Tropical Storm Melissa is moving slower than a person walking — and it may bring deadly flash floods to the Caribbean 'Near stationary' Tropical Storm Melissa is moving slower than a person walking — and it may bring deadly flash floods to the Caribbean