Two spacecraft on Mars have captured new images of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS in the closest view that the European Space Agency (ESA) will get of the mysterious object, according to an ESA statement.

The comet, which came from an unknown star system far beyond our own, is currently taking a months-long tour of the inner solar system. It made its closest approach to Mars Friday (Oct. 3) ahead of a close encounter with the sun on Oct. 30. During its recent flyby of the Red Planet, the comet came within view of ESA and NASA's fleet of robotic explorers, including ESA's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) and Mars Express orbiter.

Soaring 18.6 million miles (30 million kilometers) overhead, the comet proved too dim for Mars Express to capture. However, the ExoMars TGO satellite succeeded in snapping a series of images, which ESA combined into an animated GIF. The animation shows the comet — visible as a fuzzy, bright dot — descending toward the center of the frame as it zooms away from Mars at an estimated 130,000 mph (210,000 km/h).