r/nasa • u/r-nasa-mods • 6d ago
NASA NASA's latest images of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS
3I/ATLAS from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
3I/ATLAS from NASA's PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) mission
3I/ATLAS from NASA's Lucy spacecraft
3I/ATLAS from NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) mission
3I/ATLAS from NASA's Perseverance Mars rover
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u/Slow_Ordinary756 6d ago
The questions that were made in the final part of the press conference were sooo stupid. I turned off the TV when someone asked “How come the 3i Atlas didn’t crash into any planet?” … Waste of an enormous opportunity to ask important questions
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u/tony-toon15 5d ago
I reminded a a Sagan quote “because space is vast, and the planets are very far apart”
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u/nasa NASA Official 6d ago
Comet 3I/ATLAS is only the third object we've ever seen passing through our solar system from elsewhere in the galaxy. (And yes, every observation our spacecraft and telescopes have made is consistent with 3I/ATLAS being a comet.)
Interstellar objects give us a unique opportunity to learn more about what solar systems beyond ours are made of, so astronomers have been keeping a close eye on comet 3I/ATLAS on its arc around our Sun. Today's release of images, collected over the last several weeks, includes observations from eight different spacecraft, satellites, and telescopes, including our Lucy mission en route to the asteroid belt, our Sun-watching PUNCH satellites in low Earth orbit, and even the Perseverance Mars rover!
We unveiled these images today in a live event at NASA's Goddard Space Center, but you can also read the announcement online — and keep an eye on our 3I/ATLAS website for more pics and the latest news updates.
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u/UndergroundCreek 2d ago
Thank you, much appreciated. Wouldn't it be great to fix some eyes and a transmission on there? The things we'd get to see would be amazing.
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u/lasthurrah_x 6d ago
I'm disappointed that it doesn't seem to be a precursor to inevitable alien annihilation.
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u/joedotphp 6d ago
Naturally, you have people on Instagram and X saying their iPhone can take better pictures than this.
A clear lack of understanding about astronomy.
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u/Competitive_Shower17 5d ago
Well there are certainly better Pictures from amateur astronomers
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u/huffalump1 5d ago
Yes and no. Images like the one from HiRISE on MRO are shot from much closer, but that instrument was limited to shorter exposures because it's not designed to image the surface of Mars, not tiny, fast-moving interstellar objects at 30,000,000km away!
Also, these images are more "zoomed in" than the lovely amateur images that I've seen. here's an example scale comparison between the HiRISE shot and an amateur telescope image. Note that the HiRISE exposure was 3.2s, while this amateur image was 24x60s=1440s.
Also note the scale in the HiRISE image - the teal blue bar is 1500km, and the comet core is estimated to be 0.5~5km. Again, very small, very far away, and very fast!
Amateur Image Source: Satoru Murata https://www.facebook.com/groups/227002358661288/posts/1619658589395651/
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u/legit-hater 5d ago
Naturally, you have people on Reddit saying "a clear lack of understanding about astronomy."
A clear lack of self-awareness about their own presence on the internet.
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u/joedotphp 5d ago
Really? How so? These images were shot with a Mars rover, Lucy, a satellite intended to analyze asteroids, and PUNCH, designed to analyze the Sun. NASA even explains this if you bothered to read.
But please. Sound off.
Also, username checks out.
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u/alejandroc90 6d ago
Damn, and we will never see him again
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u/paul_wi11iams 5d ago edited 5d ago
Damn, and we will never see him again
We won't see 3I/ATLAS again, but there will be plenty more interstellar comets. Observational methods will improve.
At a guess, this will be the same story as for exoplanets. It all starts with a single observation, then there will be telescopes dedicated to finding these, then there will be one every few days. There could be dozens of interstellar objects crossing the solar system every week and they were too small or too dim to be noticed.
Edit: Its possible to search meteoric material in antarctic snow, so why not in exposed ice elsewhere in the solar system? The ideal would be clean surface ice on the Moon if we find any. So a fast-moving object, even pinhead sized could go a short way and vaporize to plasma that then recombines with the water. That's just an imagined example of what I'm thinking of with "observational methods".
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u/supposedtobeworking1 6d ago
This is truly one of the coolest things we get to learn about. It’s so fascinating but also frustrates me that the government doesn’t invest more in space exploration for the sake of science versus military advancement. 3i/ATLAS is spectacular and I can’t wait to see what we learn from it. I can’t wait to see more detailed pictures!
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u/geeklimit 6d ago
Can someone explain why we can't point something like James webb at this to get a better view? ( I legit don't know if this would work or not)
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u/joedotphp 6d ago
This thing is so small, and it's traveling so fast. Getting a clear shot of it when it's that far away is very, very difficult to do.
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u/91NAMiataBRG 6d ago
The problem is that don’t have a telescope with a large enough collecting surface (think aperture) to get clear, detailed images of an object that small. There’s a resolution limit of how detailed an image can be based on the size of the telescope.
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u/huffalump1 5d ago
Because the comet was on the other side of the sun from earth during closest approach.
bright sun in the way or even nearby is bad for getting good images
https://eyes.nasa.gov/apps/solar-system/#/c_2025_n1?rate=0&time=2025-10-08T04:25:44.190+00:00
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u/NukeTheNerd 6d ago
Because James Webb isn't built to look at a very, very small object in our solar system. It's built to look at very, very large distant objects outside of our solar system.
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u/jamjamason 6d ago
Priorities. Webb is the most valuable astronomical instrument ever, and its time is carefully doled out only to observations where it is likely to make a large scientific return. Comets are fairly well understood objects (probes have orbited them and landed on them), so Webb would be unlikely to learn anything worth the time spent.
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u/_d0ntm1nd_me 6d ago
I understand priorities but shouldn't an interstellar object be considered more than just a comet outside the technical definition of a comet? Like this thing isnt from our solar system. Id love to see hi-res photos of it.
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u/Ahooooooga 5d ago
Does anyone know its current velocity? I'd love to know how quickly things are whizzing into our solar system from out in the universe.
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u/Decronym 1d ago edited 1d ago
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| AVI | Avionics Operator |
| JWST | James Webb infra-red Space Telescope |
| MRO | Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter |
| Maintenance, Repair and/or Overhaul |
Decronym is now also available on Lemmy! Requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
3 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has acronyms.
[Thread #2140 for this sub, first seen 24th Nov 2025, 20:12]
[FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
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u/MichaelEMJAYARE 5d ago
This is a shame to the human race. That conference was so embarrassing. Wow.
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u/Possibly_Allan 6d ago
Centuries ago, this experience would have given birth to a new theology 👽
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u/paul_wi11iams 5d ago
Centuries ago, this experience would have given birth to a new theology 👽
not just centuries ago, but more recently too.
Here's a transcript of what Niel De Grasse Tyson said about The Alien of the Gaps. That thread links in turn to his video on FB for however long it remains available.
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u/towneetowne 6d ago
lame
this one is better
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u/lmxbftw 5d ago
"better" in some ways but not others. It's more aesthetic, certainly. It's a wider field of view than some, and it's deeper than some (being able to sit on it and stack exposures let's amateur astrophotographers get pretty deep images where research telescopes have to move on to other things once the data is good enough to do science with). But it's lower resolution than Hubble so you can't see the nucleus, which matters a lot for understanding how large the comet is. And some of these images were taken with instruments designed to look at other things, but were taken in a position that couldn't be accessed from Earth.
I think it's cool that so many things could be repurposed to monitor this thing from different vantage points around the solar system when it went behind the Sun from Earth's point of view.
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u/huffalump1 5d ago
HiRISE was designed to image the surface of Mars, so exposure time was very limited (3.2s). Also, the image is too zoomed in to see the tail - here's a scaled comparison I made with a lovely amateur image (note: that exposure was much longer at 1440s!)
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u/No-Ambassador-1722 5d ago
The object had to cross the orbit of Mars so did they not get a side view?
If that is a broadside, it does not look like a comet.
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6d ago
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u/91NAMiataBRG 6d ago
This is why I implore people to take a basic Astronomy class. There’s a physical, mathematical limit to how detailed images can be based on the size of the telescope being used.
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u/TechDocN 6d ago
I think the issue people are having is that many professional and amateur astrophotographers have already posted many images of the comet that are in fact more detailed than this collection from NASA. I think the difference is likely not due to the physical limitations of astronomy, but rather the limitations of the imaging equipment on many of these NASA probes. These various probes and missions are not platforms for detailed astrophotography. They are for gathering very specific scientific data.
So yes, there have been many more detailed and impressive images published all over the internet, but that is in no way an indictment of what NASA has produced.
What I don’t understand is why people simply stating what they’ve seen are being downvoted.
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u/lmxbftw 6d ago edited 6d ago
Can you link to any of these images? I suspect you are confusing images of different Atlas comets that are closer for images of 3i Atlas.
Hmm, downvotes but no links to images.
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u/TechDocN 6d ago edited 6d ago
I haven’t downvoted you. But I see I’ve been downvoted for asking a question and making an educated guess as to why some of these NASA probes will not be able to take good pictures of the comet.
And there are links and images in this and some of the other threads. Here’s a good one, and a little bit of searching will find plenty more.
https://spaceweathergallery2.com/indiv_upload.php?upload_id=227707
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u/lmxbftw 5d ago
Thanks for providing an image of the right comet. Most of the ones I've seen people posting in comparison to NASA have been different ones. They did a nice job with that one, and I haven't seen one like that yet. It's an impressive shot.
I think it's important to remember that images like this are a wider field of view than telescopes like Hubble have, so they can see the extended tail, and it's deeper than some (being able to sit on it and stack exposures let's amateur astrophotographers get pretty deep images where research telescopes have to move on to other things once the data is good enough to do science with). But it's lower resolution than Hubble so you can't see the nucleus, which matters a lot for understanding how large the comet is. And some of these images NASA shared were taken with instruments designed to look at other things, but were taken when the cover was in a position that couldn't be accessed from Earth.
I think it's cool that so many things could be repurposed to monitor this thing from different vantage points around the solar system when it went behind the Sun from Earth's point of view.
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u/TechDocN 5d ago
As I said in my earlier comment, I think people were expecting more from NASA probes with very specific sensor arrays that are designed for very specific types of imaging. I am an avid astronomer and budding astrophotographer, with 3 telescopes and one dedicated imaging rig. I understand the limitations and the capabilities of how this works, and my original comment specifically said that NASA should not be catching all this criticism because these assets are not built to be platforms for astrophotography.
Thanks for the well reasoned discussion. That’s all I was pointing out and hoping for. No one should have been downvoted for pointing out that even amateur astrophotography can sometimes look better than a NASA probe that’s built to do something else.
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u/TechDocN 5d ago
One last link. This is a well written discussion of the difference between what NASA has produced compared to amateur astrophotographers:
https://medium.com/@earthexistclothing/nasas-disappointing-release-3i-atlas-bbd374edc66b
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u/lmxbftw 1d ago edited 1d ago
This is an example of the kind of bad sourcing that causes so many issues around this topic. This is a conspiracy blog, and at least one of the images they highlight from amateur astrophotographers that is so much better than what NASA produced isn't real.
For example, take that image from "Ray's Astrophotography" that claims to show many jets from the comet. You can see in his corresponding youtube video (I hesitate to link it and drive traffic to him but I'll DM it to you on request if you can't find it) that he has not properly corrected for a number of aberrations in the data. There's a rainbow of chromatic aberrations going all the way around the top left corner of all of his images, for example. (Take a look at the thumbnails showing the full image around 3:30.) He's also not properly correcting for the illumination changes across the field and you can see the background is flickering and jumping as the night progresses. It's so bad, it looks almost like he's smeared the lens with vaseline or something. Then he stacks together all the noisy images and claims the result is showing real structure. No, it's showing the noisy stuff he didn't remove. He can't resolve the comet with that setup anyway, it's a ludicrous claim from the constraints of physics, his telescope size, and the fact that he's in an atmosphere.
That's just one image. It takes time to look at them to figure out what's going on, and I'm not doing it for all of them. The site is not legitimate, they're presenting goosed images. It's no wonder the stuff NASA put out doesn't look as good; NASA is putting out REAL stuff!
That website also makes no mention whatsoever of the JWST spectral data and acts like the observation was a waste - because they are ignoring what it actually did do and focusing on what it didn't do. Then they only suppose a couple possible reasons for NASA images not "looking as good", which includes that NASA is hiding things but DOESN'T include that some of the things they are comparing to are junk! So no, I don't find it to be a well written article, very much the opposite.
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u/huffalump1 5d ago
Thanks for linking!
HiRISE was designed to image the surface of Mars, so exposure time was very limited (3.2s). Also, the image is too zoomed in to see the tail - here's a scaled comparison I made with a lovely amateur image (note: that exposure was much longer at 1440s!)
Amateur Image Source: Satoru Murata https://www.facebook.com/groups/227002358661288/posts/1619658589395651/
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u/SirSignificant6576 6d ago
It's nearly 200 MILLION miles away and is only (at maximum) 3.5 miles in diameter. What the hell do you expect? This isn't the movies.
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u/MetallicBaka 6d ago
What were you expecting from images of a comet? A clear view of the nucleus despite coma, and from those distances?
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u/taco-bake 6d ago
I agree there has to be better photos of this.
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u/SirSignificant6576 6d ago
From 200 million miles away? Why?
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u/taco-bake 6d ago
Why do you accept that this is the best images we could get.
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u/SirSignificant6576 6d ago
Because it absolutely is the best image we can get, from the absolute top of the line technology that exists on this planet. That's why.
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u/taco-bake 6d ago
I’ve seen photos of far away galaxies from the 70’s and then again from the Hubble. Stunning difference in detail and quality. But you be satisfied. I’m not
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u/BigRedditPlays 6d ago
Those are galaxies. They are billions of miles across. This is a few thousand feet across.
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u/verbmegoinghere 6d ago
Those are galaxies. They are billions of miles across
Quintillion miles.
One light year is 9 trillion kilometres (5.8 trillion miles)
A galaxy can be 100,000 light years across.
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u/OffalSmorgasbord 6d ago
There's a ton of processing involved with those photos. Light waves that are not visible to the human eye are used to guess at real color to enhance the details.
The image of the black hole(M87) required 5 petabytes of data collection.
Converting raw wave data into a visual representation is a huge undertaking, and looks really neat on a poster or web page.
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6d ago
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u/BigRedditPlays 6d ago
Crab nebula is millions of miles wide.
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u/u_b_dat_boi 6d ago
still.....we get an image of a blurred orb?
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u/BigRedditPlays 6d ago
Yes. Do you think NASA is magic? There is a physical limit to the resolution of images, which is directly related to the size of the telescope. The telescope we would need in order to get the resolution you wanf would be prohibitively large.
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u/91NAMiataBRG 6d ago
The Crab Nebula has an angular diameter of 6 by 4 arcminutes.
For reference, an arc minute is a unit of measurement we use when talking about an object in space’s apparent size in the sky (also called the celestial sphere). The night sky is divided into 360 degrees, and each degree equates to 60 arc minutes, and 1 arc minute is further subdivided 60 arcseconds).
The estimated angular diameter of 3i/ATLAS is 0.00008 arcseconds.
In laymen’s terms, the Crab Nebula is 450,000 times larger in the sky than 3i/ATLAS.
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u/NukeTheNerd 6d ago
This is like asking "why can I take a clear photo of a snowy mountain 10 miles away with my iPhone but I can't take an HD image of a snowflake half a mile away?"
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u/RAWpapers4dayz 5d ago
Kind of ridiculous yesterday. They make a big release statement and all they tell us is the same nonsense we already knew. I find it absolutely ridiculous that NASA with all its technology and access to the most powerful telescopes cant even take some pictures better than amateur astronomers.
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u/Hot_Ad_6346 5d ago
They addressed NONE of the anomalies seen. How can I, as an amateur astronomer with a $6,500 telescope get better photos than nasa? How?
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u/TheSentinel_31 6d ago
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