She wants them to put ATLAS on the map.<\/p>\n
Amid growing mystery surrounding 3I\/ATLAS, Republican congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna is calling on NASA to share unreleased data and images of the Manhattan-sized comet to advance our understanding.<\/p>\n
The 36-year-old Florida rep shared an X post of her letter<\/a>, which was addressed to acting NASA administrator Sean Duffy.<\/p>\n \u201cI write to request the release of specific observational data related to 3I\/ATLAS, recently captured by NASA missions,\u201d Luna wrote. \u201cThis information is of great importance to advancing our understanding of interstellar visitors and their interaction with our solar system.\u201d<\/p>\n Amid growing mystery surrounding 3I\/ATLAS\u2019, Republican congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna is calling on NASA to share unreleased data and images of the Manhattan-sized comet to advance our understanding. AP<\/p>\n The Hubble Space Telescope image of 3I\/ATLAS shows diffuse emission that extends ahead of the object as it approaches the Sun. Jewitt et al. 2025<\/p>\n This comes as the comet exhibited signs of non-gravitational acceleration and appeared<\/a> \u201cbluer than the sun\u201d while flying by our local star, causing Harvard scientist Avi Loeb to speculate that it could have an alien craft \u201cengine.\u201d<\/p>\n The lawmaker specifically called upon the space agency to release the images that the HiRISE camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter snapped between October 2-3. <\/p>\n She also requested \u201csupplementary data\u201d from the spacecraft in question, the Perseverance Rover, and \u201cother Mars missions that may have detected unusual activity near Mars around or after October 3, 2025, when 3I\/ATLAS passed within approximately 30 million kilometers (18.6 million miles) of the planet.\u201d<\/p>\n U.S. Representative Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) speaks during a memorial service for slain conservative commentator Charlie Kirk at State Farm Stadium, in Glendale, Arizona, U.S., September 21, 2025. REUTERS<\/p>\n Coincidentally, Loeb accused NASA of refusing to show him the HiRISE camera image snapped on October 2,<\/a> suggesting that said image could\u2019ve provided evidence of the cosmic body\u2019s non-cometary characteristics, such as a tail that points toward and not away from the sun as is standard.<\/p>\n \u201cThis information is of great importance to advancing our understanding of interstellar visitors and their interaction with our solar system,\u201d said Luna. Getty Images<\/p>\n Elsewhere in the letter, Luna implored the space agency to keep close tabs on ATLAS, which is the third-ever interstellar object recorded in our solar system.<\/p>\n \u201cI encourage NASA to fund additional observations of 31\/ATLAS by the Juno mission near Jupiter, utilizing all available instruments, including its radio sensors,\u201d she wrote. \u201cObservations from this vantage point could yield valuable insights into the object\u2019s composition, trajectory, and possible interaction with the solar environment.\u201d<\/p>\n Loeb praised Luna for taking the initiative in a recent post on Medium<\/a>, writing, \u201cWe all owe a debt of deep gratitude for the visionary support displayed by Representative Luna to frontier science through her letter.\u201d<\/p>\n The politician isn\u2019t the only high-profile figure inquiring about our visitor from beyond.<\/p>\n