Translation. Region: Russian Federation –
Source: People's Republic of China in Russian – People's Republic of China in Russian –
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Source: People's Republic of China – State Council News
Beijing, November 6 (Xinhua) — The Tianwen-1 orbiter of China's Mars exploration mission successfully observed an interstellar object, designated 3I/ATLAS, using its high-resolution camera, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) announced.
At the time of the observation, the spacecraft was approximately 30 million km from 3I/ATLAS, making it one of the closest probes observing this interstellar object.
Data acquired and processed by the ground-based application system revealed distinct features of the comet in the images. The researchers created an animation from a series of images taken over 30 seconds, demonstrating the object's motion through space. These observations are now being used for further scientific study by 3I/ATLAS.
The successful observation represents an important extended mission for Tianwen-1. The discovery of such a dim celestial object serves as a valuable technical test for China's Tianwen-2 mission, which launched in May to collect samples from a near-Earth asteroid and explore a main-belt comet, the CNSA reported. -0-
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