Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb has a lot to say about 3I/ATLAS, the Manhattan-sized interstellar comet, which is set for its closest pass to the Sun on Wednesday. It will swing by Mars on Friday, within 18 million miles (29 million kilometers) of the red planet. Its breakneck speed: 193,000 mph (310,000 kph).
Now, NASA is facing concerning accusations. Avi Loeb, speaking on The Joe Rogan Experience, said the agency withheld key information about the comet. He was discussing how 3I/ATLAS seemed to defy comet behavior.
“Amazingly, the best image was obtained on Oct. 2, 2025, when 3I/ATLAS came within 30 million kilometers of Mars,” the scientist said.
Loeb claimed that NASA has not publicly released a photograph of the interstellar comet, allegedly taken by the HiRISE camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Loeb said he reached out directly to the principal investigator of HiRISE, requesting access to the data as a scientist, but never received a response. Asked whether this suggested NASA was hiding key discoveries, he quipped, “It’s much more likely not to be related to extraterrestrial intelligence, but to terrestrial stupidity.”
NASA has yet to confirm the existence of such an image or respond to claims that it has been withheld. The agency’s official stance remains that 3I/ATLAS poses no threat to Earth and could, in fact, help scientists better understand potentially hazardous space objects in the future.
Speaking on The Joe Rogan Experience, Loeb speculated that the supposed image might have contradicted NASA’s recent assertion that an “atypical jet” on the comet evolved into a conventional tail. He likened the discrepancy to “calling an animal in your backyard a street cat, even though it has a tail growing out of its forehead.”
Loeb has long argued that 3I/ATLAS, only the third known interstellar object to pass through our solar system, might be extraterrestrial in origin. He points to its anomalous acceleration, odd trajectory near Jupiter, Venus, and Mars, and a unique plume emitting four grams of nickel per second without any iron - a combination unprecedented in known comets.
From November 27, 2025, to January 27, 2026, NASA and the International Asteroid Warning Network will lead a “comet campaign” to refine how space agencies detect and monitor such objects. The initiative will include workshops on astrometry, the precise measurement of a comet’s position and motion, to improve methods of tracking future cosmic visitors.