Overview
- The agency published new datasets and images, including an Oct. 2 HiRISE view from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, with additional observations from Psyche, Lucy, and other NASA missions.
- NASA maintains the object is a natural interstellar comet and poses no threat to Earth, with closest approach estimated at about 1.6–1.8 AU.
- Press reporting attributes the delay in releasing imagery to a U.S. federal government shutdown and to calibration and independent verification of the data.
- Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb criticized the presentation, urging release of raw imagery and arguing the processing obscures anomalies, a contention most specialists dispute.
- An amateur astrophotographer’s video claiming an apparently rotating coma has fueled online debate, and researchers say additional observations will test such interpretations.