Europa Clipper, Images from the Journey to Europa

NASA's Europa Clipper captured this infrared image of the heat radiation from Mars and its moons Phobos (closest to Mars) and Deimos (seen in upper left corner) on Feb. 28, 2025, as the spacecraft approached the Red Planet while en route to the Jupiter system to investigate the icy moon Europa. The mission flew by Mars the next day, using the planet's gravity to help shape the spacecraft's trajectory.

The image was taken by the mission's Europa Thermal Emission Imaging System (E-THEMIS), using the middle of E-THEMIS's three long-wave infrared wavelength bands, which extend from about 14 to 28 micrometers.

NASA’s Europa Clipper mission observed the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS on Nov. 6 from a distance of about 102 million miles (164 million kilometers). Captured over a period of seven hours, the data gathered by the spacecraft’s Europa Ultraviolet Spectrograph (Europa-UVS) instrument will help scientists determine the composition and distribution of elements in the comet’s coma — the cloud of gas and dust that surrounds its central core of ice and rock. The central blue circle shows hydrogen atoms within the inner coma glowing at the Lyman-alpha wavelength, while green shows similar oxygen atom emissions and red presumably indicates dust-scattered sunlight.