NASA’s HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter imaged interstellar object 3I/ATLAS when it passed about 18 million miles from Mars, but a federal shutdown has delayed release of those high‑resolution frames. Representative Anna Paulina Luna has urged interim NASA administrator Sean Duffy to publish the images, and Duffy says they will be released once the government reopens. China’s Tianwen‑1 mission has already released HiRIC images showing a nucleus and a several‑thousand‑kilometer coma, while astronomers note an unexpected lack of a visible tail. Researchers say the HiRISE data are needed to better constrain the object’s size and test competing explanations, including both natural and more speculative hypotheses.
NASA Withholds Hi‑Res Images of Interstellar Visitor 3I/ATLAS During Government Shutdown
NASA’s HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter imaged interstellar object 3I/ATLAS when it passed about 18 million miles from Mars, but a federal shutdown has delayed release of those high‑resolution frames. Representative Anna Paulina Luna has urged interim NASA administrator Sean Duffy to publish the images, and Duffy says they will be released once the government reopens. China’s Tianwen‑1 mission has already released HiRIC images showing a nucleus and a several‑thousand‑kilometer coma, while astronomers note an unexpected lack of a visible tail. Researchers say the HiRISE data are needed to better constrain the object’s size and test competing explanations, including both natural and more speculative hypotheses.
21:24, 07.11.2025Science
What happened? Last month the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS passed through the inner solar system and came within roughly 18 million miles of Mars. While nearby, NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) used its HiRISE camera to capture high-resolution images that scientists hoped would clarify the object's nature.
Why the delay? A federal government shutdown that began days after the observations has delayed the public release of the HiRISE data. Representative Anna Paulina Luna (R‑FL) wrote to interim NASA administrator Sean Duffy urging the agency to make the images public because HiRISE offers roughly three times the resolution of July images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.
“This information is of great importance to advancing our understanding of interstellar visitors and their interaction with our solar system,” Luna wrote. “The brightest pixel in these images will provide our most precise constraint on the object’s size to date.”
Duffy reportedly told Luna the images will be released once the government reopens. Until then, officials say, bureaucratic restrictions prevent publication.
Other images are already available. Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb, who has been assisting Luna with the request, pointed out that China’s Tianwen‑1 Mars Orbiter has published frames from its High‑Resolution Imaging Camera (HiRIC). Those images — taken from as close as roughly 18,000 miles — show a compact nucleus surrounded by a diffuse coma several thousand kilometers across.
Higher-resolution HiRISE data would allow astronomers to constrain the nucleus’s size more precisely. Based on Loeb’s earlier calculations, a solid-density nucleus would need to be larger than about 3.1 miles, implying a mass on the order of 33 billion tons. These estimates are model-dependent and have significant uncertainties.
Unusual behavior and debate. 3I/ATLAS is only the third confirmed interstellar object observed in our system and has displayed puzzling characteristics. Images from the R. Naves Observatory in Spain on November 5 showed little or no visible tail — unexpected for an object that recently passed perihelion (closest approach to the Sun). In a blog post, Loeb argued that the inferred mass loss during perihelion should have produced a prominent tail; its absence has fueled discussion about the object’s composition and behavior.
Some commentators have suggested more speculative explanations, including the controversial idea that 3I/ATLAS might be an artificial relic. Most researchers stress that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and that more data — particularly the withheld HiRISE frames — are needed before drawing firm conclusions.
What’s next? The scientific community is awaiting the U.S. government’s reopening so NASA can release the HiRISE data. Once available, researchers will compare the HiRISE images with China’s HiRIC frames and ground-based observations to refine size, mass, and activity estimates and to test competing explanations for the object’s unusual lack of a tail.