Overview

• NASA’s Perseverance posted raw Right Navcam frames on Oct. 4 showing a bright streak during 3I/ATLAS’s Mars flyby.
• Social-media users and amateurs, including Simeon Schmauß, argued the rover may have seen the interstellar visitor after stacking Mastcam-Z images.
• Harvard physicist Avi Loeb says the elongated form is a stack-and-motion artifact, estimating a roughly 10-minute composite that would smear the source into a path tens of thousands of kilometers long at Navcam resolution.
• NASA and most astronomers continue to classify 3I/ATLAS as a natural active comet despite online suggestions of an artificial craft or exotic materials.
• Higher-resolution HiRISE observations from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter were reportedly obtained and remain unreleased as the government shutdown curtails agency updates.