NASA recently released the much-awaited images of the comet 3I/ATLAS, and many among the public were dissatisfied with the picture quality. Several social media users across platforms questioned why NASA couldn’t take better images when amateur astronomers are able to provide better views of this interstellar visitor. Here’s why these pictures don’t seem up to the mark but they are a monumental achievement.
❓Why so blurry❓
Lots of reasons…but in short, it’s not what these spacecraft were designed to do. As comet 3I/ATLAS swooped by, we jumped on the opportunity to turn our instruments its way and see what we could get. Take HiRISE as an example.👇
The left is what it was… pic.twitter.com/A5NuecHYWb
— NASA Solar System (@NASASolarSystem) November 20, 2025
Why NASA’s 3I/ATLAS images look blurry?
Before you get mad over the quality, you must understand that NASA is not primarily using traditional telescopes with large mirrors to take pictures of 3I/ATLAS. The images were captured by multiple spacecraft and satellites currently in space which turned their cameras, meant to observe closer objects, to photograph the comet. Imaging fast-moving and dim objects is not what they’re designed to do.
Take the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) for example, which used its HiRISE camera to snap the comet. The image below on the left shows what this camera is capable of – photographing the surface of Mars which is bright, close, and stable. On the other hand, there’s 3I/ATLAS on the right which was around 30 million km away from Mars and moving at a speed of over 2,50,000 km per hour.
Similarly, the Psyche spacecraft which is on its way to study a metal-rich asteroid of the same name was 53 million km away from 3I/ATLAS whereas the Lucy spacecraft, meant to explore Jupiter’s trojan asteroids, was around 386 million km. Ground-based telescopes will surpass these spacecraft in terms of quality because they have larger mirrors that gather more light, producing images of faint objects with higher resolution.
The photo release was delayed due to the US government shutdown, and now that it’s over, NASA is leading an unprecedented observation campaign to study 3I/ATLAS using every major observatory in space.
The recently released pictures were captured by the MRO, Psyche, Lucy, SOHO, STEREO-A, TESS, the Mars Perseverance rover and MAVEN orbiter. Soon after the comet’s discovery on July 1, NASA had also used space telescopes like Hubble, James Webb and SPHEREx to gather data. The comet will make its closest approach to Earth on December 19 and we can expect much better pictures when that happens.
ALSO READ: Harvard Physicist Avi Loeb Criticises NASA’s Comet 3I/ATLAS Photo Release
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