In a groundbreaking achievement, China’s Tianwen 1 Mars orbiter has successfully observed the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS using its advanced high-resolution camera. The China National Space Administration (CNSA) announced the milestone, highlighting that the spacecraft was approximately 30 million kilometers from the object during the observation, marking one of the closest encounters by a probe to date. The data captured by the orbiter revealed distinct cometary features, with researchers creating an animation from a series of images taken over 30 seconds to illustrate the object’s trajectory through space. These findings are now being analyzed for further scientific insights into 3I/ATLAS. This accomplishment not only underscores the extended mission success of Tianwen 1 but also serves as a critical technical test for the upcoming Tianwen 2 mission, launched in May 2025, which aims to collect samples from a near-Earth asteroid and explore a main-belt comet. The observation of such a faint celestial object demonstrates China’s growing capabilities in deep-space exploration and its commitment to advancing astronomical research.