China's Tianwen-1 Mars orbiter has become the first spacecraft to capture and release a close-range image of the interstellar object 3I/Atlas, ahead of NASA and other global space agencies.
The object is only the third confirmed visitor from outside the solar system, making the images a rare scientific milestone. The photograph was taken from tens of millions of kilometres away, using equipment originally intended for mapping the Martian surface rather than deep-space targets.
