Pictures, pixels, and picks

Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS makes its closest approach to Earth today. On Dec. 19, the comet will pass about 1.8 astronomical units from Earth — roughly 270 million kilometers (168 million miles). The comet’s pass poses no danger, but gives researchers a good opportunity to study it. Pictured: 3I/ATLAS glowing in the night sky above Egypt's Black Desert, captured by astrophotographer Osama Fathi. Image credit: Osama Fathi.

Jared Isaacman has been confirmed as the new NASA administrator. On Wednesday, the U.S. Senate voted 67-30 in favor of the billionaire entrepreneur and private astronaut’s nomination as NASA’s 15th administrator.

NASA is still investigating the loss of contact with MAVEN. The spacecraft’s signal went silent on Dec. 6 after 11 years in Mars orbit. The mission team recovered a brief fragment of tracking data from that day, which shows that MAVEN was rotating in an unexpected manner when it emerged from behind Mars and may have altered its orbit trajectory. Further investigation into the spacecraft's condition is ongoing.

Chinese taikonauts conducted a spacewalk to inspect the damaged Shenzhou-20 capsule. Two crew members spent about eight hours outside China’s Tiangong space station to inspect a cracked window on the docked Shenzhou-20 spacecraft. The damage — likely from space debris — previously forced the Shenzhou-20 crew to return aboard the Shenzhou-21 spacecraft instead.

Want to cozy up with a good space book? We’ve got you covered. The Planetary Society’s virtual book club read a great space book each month this year, and we’ve compiled an overview of the entire selection. From fiction to autobiography, history to hard science, there’s a book for everyone among our picks from 2025 (pictured). Image credit: Mark Hilverda.

You’ve heard of habitable planets, but what about habitable stars? Not all stars are as life-sustaining as our Sun — some may actually destroy any chances of life on the planets around them. Learn more about the best and worst kinds of stars for alien life.

30 years after Galileo arrived at Jupiter, its legacy lives on. Galileo was the first mission to orbit Jupiter, opening a new chapter in our exploration of the outer Solar System. To mark the 30th anniversary of Galileo’s orbital insertion, scientists, engineers, historians, and advocates gathered at the California Institute of Technology for a special symposium: Galileo at 30. This week’s Planetary Radio takes you inside that celebration to hear about how the mission reshaped planetary science.

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