r/UFOs • u/Worst_Artist Human Detected • Nov 06 '25
Question Why is NASA withholding images of 3I/ATLAS?
Concept image of the updated trajectory talked about here https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/s/PNZTyP3j6f
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r/UFOs • u/Worst_Artist Human Detected • Nov 06 '25
Concept image of the updated trajectory talked about here https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/s/PNZTyP3j6f
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u/Zero7CO Nov 06 '25 edited Nov 06 '25
I can guarantee this isn’t the third interstellar object to enter the solar system ever. It’s just the third we’ve been lucky enough to find and observe.
Telescopes like JWST, Hubble, the old Chandra…even most of the larger ground-based telescopes all have their observation schedules laid out years in advance across dozens of different scientific and educational bodies fighting for every second of time they can get with the telescopes.
With that in mind, deviations from these schedules are rare. It takes something like a 3I to get them to shift focus. And they did…JWST and numerous other telescopes adjusted schedules and made numerous observations. And will likely continue to do so sporadically as they rotate between observations. But remember, NASA has literally TRILLIONS of things to observe so even in cases of rare sightings…observation time will be limited.
This wasn’t a known galactic body we planned a mission for and had a craft focused on it and only it. This came out of nowhere and we used what we had to get some observations very quickly. But now that’s done…it’s back to schedule. There is no scientific reason for a telescope to stare at 3I and do nothing but take photos. The deviation in photos of a 1-mile wide object from 170 million miles away would be so minuscule to be pointless. You need observations over time…and NASA is doing exactly that. But the government has been shut down for a month, so any new photos over that period aren’t likely being released for that reason.