{"id":256751,"date":"2025-11-11T12:13:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T12:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/256751\/"},"modified":"2025-11-11T12:13:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T12:13:09","slug":"as-the-government-shutdown-ends-can-nasa-please-release-the-40-day-old-hirise-images-of-3i-atlas-by-avi-loeb-nov-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/256751\/","title":{"rendered":"As the Government Shutdown Ends, Can NASA Please Release the 40-Day-Old HiRISE Images of 3I\/ATLAS? | by Avi Loeb | Nov, 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Avi<\/a>Press enter or click to view image in full size\"\"A new image of the complex jet structures around 3I\/ATLAS, taken on October 10, 2025. (Credit: The Virtual Telescope Project<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Lets be honest. We are born for a short time on a rock we call Earth, a tiny relic from the formation of a nearby star we call the Sun, which formed in the last third of cosmic history. Most of the 100 billion stars in our Milky-Way galaxy formed billions of years before the Sun. Our record is not very impressive in the cosmic scheme of things.<\/p>\n

There is a vast amount of space and time that we have never explored. We can learn new things as long as we maintain humility and an open mind. The main threat to new knowledge is the arrogance of expertise. When I was asked yesterday by eight podcasters and reporters (including Gadi Schwartz on NBC News here<\/a> and Elizabeth Vargas on NewsNation here<\/a>), why comet experts are so dismissive of an alternative interpretation of the puzzling anomalies of the interstellar object 3I\/ATLAS<\/a>, I made an analogy between unimaginative scientists and artificial intelligence (AI) systems. Both are saying things that reflect their training data sets. If you were to train AI systems only on data regarding comets, they would argue that any object in the sky is a comet \u2014 irrespective of the anomalies it displays. This is why 1I\/`Oumuamua<\/a> is regarded by comet experts as a `dark comet\u2019, namely a comet that does not display the characteristics of a comet: it exhibited non-gravitational acceleration without any trace of gas or dust around it. The fact that space objects like 2020 SO<\/a> which was launched by NASA or the Tesla Roadster Car<\/a> which was launched by SpaceX, behave like dark comets because they are technological in origin, is irrelevant because comet experts refuse to include these examples in their training data set. On top of that, we must add the Pavlovian<\/a> resistance of experts to new ideas, as a means of protecting their turf of past knowledge. These two elements explain the violent insistence of comet experts that the seven jets observed around 3I\/ATLAS in recent days (as reviewed here<\/a>) must have originated from sublimation of pockets of icy volatiles on a rock rather than thrusters on a spacecraft.<\/p>\n

Gladly, there is a better path forward. In the coming weeks leading to the closest approach of 3I\/ATLAS to Earth on December 19, 2025, we will be able to measure the speed, mass density and composition of these jets and search for multiple fragments from the fireworks of perihelion \u2014 as expected if 3I\/ATLAS is a natural comet. Seeking scientific data is key to learning the truth. By staying curious and humble while collecting clues in this detective story, science brings us together. When egos get in the way, politics and social media set us apart.<\/p>\n

On October 2\u20133, 2025, the HiRISE camera<\/a> onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took side images of 3I\/ATLAS with 30 kilometers per pixel resolution, as 3I\/ATLAS passed within 29 million kilometers from Mars. Following the submission of an official letter to NASA (accessible here<\/a>), the brilliant congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna tweeted the following message:<\/p>\n

Press enter or click to view image in full size\"\"<\/p>\n

As the government shutdown is about to end, can NASA please release the data that was held hostage by politics for 40 days? Scientific knowledge should not be second in priority to bureaucracy.<\/p>\n

The public interest in the mysteries of 3I\/ATLAS is unprecedented. After the old dishwasher at my home broke down yesterday, I called the company to order a new one. The attendant with whom I never spoke before recognized my voice and said: \u201cIs this Avi Loeb? I have been following you in podcasts and television interviews about 3I\/ATLAS. It is a great honor to speak with you. What are the latest updates on 3I\/ATLAS?\u201d<\/p>\n

Press enter or click to view image in full size\"\"Positions of 3I\/ATLAS and the inner planets in the Solar System as of November 11, 2025. (Credit: NASA\/JPL<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Starting today, November 11, 2025, Earth-based observatories can focus again on 3I\/ATLAS as its angular separation from the Sun grows beyond 30 degrees in the sky.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, I placed an official bet with Michael Shermer<\/a>, executive director of the Skeptics Society<\/a>, that within five years (by December 31, 2030) there will be undisputable scientific evidence for a technological artifact from an extraterrestrial civilization. The bet money will go to the non-profit Foundation of the Galileo Project<\/a> \u2014 of which both Michael and I are members. My statement to the Long Now Foundation<\/a> which is officiating the bet, reads as follows:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe search for technological artifacts has just started in earnest in 2025 with the discovery of the anomalous interstellar object 3I\/ATLAS, the launch of the Rubin Observatory and the construction of three Galileo Project Observatories. Given that there are billions of Earth-Sun analogs in the Milky-Way galaxy \u2014 most of which are billions of years older than the solar system, and that it will take less than a billion years for our Voyager spacecraft to cross the Milky-Way disk, we must engage in the scientific search for extraterrestrial technological artifacts. It is better to be an optimist because life is sometimes a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is why I am engaged in the search with the hope that we will find a partner on our blind date with interstellar objects.\u201d<\/p>\n

ABOUT THE AUTHOR<\/p>\n

Press enter or click to view image in full size\"\"(Image Credit: Chris Michel, National Academy of Sciences, 2023)<\/p>\n

Avi Loeb is the head of the Galileo Project, founding director of Harvard University\u2019s \u2014 Black Hole Initiative, director of the Institute for Theory and Computation at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and the former chair of the astronomy department at Harvard University (2011\u20132020). He is a former member of the President\u2019s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and a former chair of the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Academies. He is the bestselling author of \u201cExtraterrestrial:<\/a> The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth<\/a>\u201d and a co-author of the textbook \u201cLife in the Cosmos<\/a>\u201d, both published in 2021. The paperback edition of his new book, titled \u201cInterstellar<\/a>\u201d, was published in August 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Press enter or click to view image in full sizeA new image of the complex jet structures around…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":256752,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[90,416,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-256751","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-space","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256751\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}