The NASA-funded ATLAS survey telescope in Chile found the comet on July 1. The comet was not visible as it raced behind the sun, getting as close as 130 million miles, for about a month before reappearing in December. After it passes Earth on Friday, the comet is expected to journey back out of the solar system.

Southwest Research Institute's novel Compact Dual Ion Composition Experiment (CoDICE) instrument aboard NASA's Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) spacecraft has successfully collected first-light data.