No one keeps secrets better than NASA, and the truth is that, no matter how much they want to, the world is waiting for them to talk about the comet 3I/ATLAS. We know there are photos, but NASA is keeping them very well guarded.
They have been silent for days, but according to what is being said in the rumor mill, they have new images of the comet although they have decided not to publish them yet. Nothing strange if we think about scientific bureaucracy, but much stranger if we talk about a comet nobody expected, with behavior nobody expected… and knowing that they had all the observatories on our planet ready to capture it… strange? Yes.
But here we love when the internet catches fire, there are researchers asking questions, amateurs speculating and a lot of eyes and ears waiting for NASA to speak and finally show the photos. Spoiler: according to internal sources there is a “luxury collection” of images coming from ground telescopes, from the Mars probes… but for now “they are under analysis”.
So, while everything remains under lock and key, let’s review what is known… and what is stopping this long awaited publication.
Why are the images still hidden?
Look, 3I/ATLAS passed its perihelion, hid behind the Sun and left the teams without a way to observe it directly for quite some time. Even so, before disappearing through that impossible angle, several instruments managed to photograph it, almost certainly Hubble, James Webb and HiRISE.
NASA confirmed that the images exist but that they are still in calibration, color adjustment, noise cleaning, comparison between one and another…
Why so much work?
Because each instrument is different. For example, Hubble captures fine details and visible light, but Webb works in infrared and needs millimetric corrections to give a halfway clear image.
On the other hand, the teams on Mars send data through the deep space network, which right now is prioritizing other missions.
So, among all of them it is almost like forming a puzzle, which is why it takes a bit more time.
Orbital geometry
Yes, these words may sound strange to you, but simplifying, 3I/ATLAS passed very close to the brightness of the Sun, so many astronomers had to bring out the heavy artillery to capture good images.
If they published those photos as they are, many would end up seeing things that do not exist, would say that it is not a comet, that it could be a random manhole cover, that it is an artificial shape… you know, people really like to talk on the internet.
Science moves at another pace
As much as we want to see more images of this particular traveler, for NASA the priority is the precision of the images and not the speed, especially because there is a lot of expectation around this topic, and many remember what happened with Oumuamua (another of the largest comets ever seen), so they prefer caution.
Of course many believe that everything is orchestrated by NASA and that this comet is an alien probe, but for now we are not going to pay attention to them (unless you want us to pay attention to them, right?)
That is why NASA wants to publish everything at once, photos, data, spectra… and a clear explanation to avoid misinterpretations.
3I/ATLAS
The data already collected on this comet are still being analyzed. It is one of the three largest ever observed in history, along with Borisov and Oumuamua, but 3I/ATLAS has several particularities, its formation, its size, the speed at which it travels and above all, where it comes from, who knows?
The wait will be long, but it will surely be worth it, we know NASA never disappoints and does not want to make mistakes with this!
And you, are you excited to know what secrets this comet hides?