‘Where Are the Real Images?’ Govt Shutdown Delays 3I/Atlas Photo Release and Alien Spaceship Debate

October 7, 2025

In July 2025, astronomers announced a Manhattan-sized object moving rapidly through our solar system. Named “3I/Atlas,” it’s only the third interstellar object we’ve been able to observe (thus its name 3I/).

Harvard professor Avi Loeb made headlines when he theorized it could potentially be an alien spaceship. Scientists scrambled to point the cameras from NASA’s Mars orbiter and ESA’s ExoMars orbiter at the mysterious object before it passed close to the Red Planet on October 3.

Now, four days after the flyby, many are asking, “Where are the real images?”

While the European Space Agency has published its preliminary photos—grainy images of a white dot flying past ExoMars—NASA’s been silent. Instead, the NASA website announced, “NASA is currently closed due to a lapse in government funding.”

Neal Girandola and Andrew Triana run the “Mostly True Alien Stories” podcast. The podcast’s TikTok channel explains, “We just got our closest look yet as it passed by Mars, and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter reportedly captured new data.

But with NASA caught up in the government shutdown, nothing official has been released.”

While the rest of us wait, several hobbyist astronomers have mounted some incredibly creative investigations into the object in outer space. They’ve given us two viral images.

The first appears to show a long tube flying over Mars. The second shows the same object head-on, and it has asymmetrical, fin-like protrusions on its sides. But experts are not convinced they’re accurate.

Is 3I/Atlas an alien spaceship shaped like a cylindrical rocket?

While NASA doesn’t broadcast its Mars orbiters’ data as a live feed, you can watch the Perseverance rover crawl across the red planet’s surface in real time—and it has cameras pointed skyward.

“Stephen Burns and Simeon Shmohm have been digging through raw Perseverance rover data. Burns stitched together a nine-minute time-lapse showing a bright object racing across the sky.

Shmohm stacked 20 images to boost faint details and spotted a smudge right where 3I/Atlas was predicted to be.”

To an untrained eye (like mine), it looks like Perseverance filmed a cylindrical object flying over Mars. Something that was, say, rocket-ship-shaped. That makes my “alien spaceship” spidey senses tingle.

This shape is especially intriguing because one of the two other interstellar objects we’ve observed—1I/Oumuamua—was also up to 10 times as long as it was wide, according to NASA. But even Professor Loeb warns that the truth about 3I/Atlas’ shape may be more nuanced.

“The elongated cylinder could be caused by smearing due to a long exposure time of the camera as the source moves across the Martian sky.”

Translation: at 140,000 mph, 3I/Atlas may be moving far too fast for the stationary little rover’s camera to capture, and the resulting blur looks like a long cylinder.

Does 3I/Atlas have fins?

Tiago is an amateur astronomer located in Portugal. For over a decade, he’s been sharing his findings on his YouTube channel, Dobsonian Power. In the video embedded below, he reveals images he recently captured of 3I/Atlas from Earth.

Tiago used his massive, 15.2-magnitude home telescope to film the object. This wasn’t an image of the profile of the object, like Perseverance captured, but an image of the object facing in our general direction.

It’s obviously not facing directly at us, because 3I/Atlas won’t pass anywhere near Earth. But it is flying toward the inner solar system.

The resulting images were too blurry to zoom in on 3I/Atlas. But Tiago was able to use AI to enhance the few pixels he captured and pointed out that a dark object silhouetted against 3I/Atlas’ bright halo had bizarre protrusions on multiple sides—almost like fins.

Even though Tiago has a fantastic setup for an amateur astronomer, his images are obviously an order of magnitude away from what NASA and the ESA capture.

As intriguing as his preliminary findings are, they just highlight how much we still have to learn about interstellar objects.

Hopefully, we get a full professional analysis of the images NASA and the ESA captured of 3I/Atlas as it flew by Mars—and soon.

https://www.motorbiscuit.com/3i-atlas-photo-alien-spaceship/

https://x.com/realannapaulina/status/1974911918130299350

https://x.com/DobsonianPower

https://www.tiktok.com/@mostlytruealienstories/video/7558146361326193933

https://avi-loeb.medium.com/new-questions-and-answers-about-3i-atlas-faacb48feb93

https://avi-loeb.medium.com/first-images-of-3i-atlas-from-exomars-tgo-3dd902ff8849

https://www.iflscience.com/interstellar-object-3iatlas-may-be-a-10-billion-year-old-time-capsule-from-an-earlier-age-of-the-universe-81077

https://www.sci.news/astronomy/water-interstellar-object-3i-atlas-14270.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_TeQd78Gnc

https://www.usatoday.com/story/studiog/life/2025/10/07/sean-duffy-nasa-acting-administrator-talks-space/85866007007/

https://x.com/SecDuffyNASA

https://x.com/secduffy

Amid cuts, uncertainty, Sean Duffy, the acting NASA Administrator, focuses on the future of space travel

Oct 7, 2025 9:00 a.m. ET

Space exploration is as fickle as it is fantastic. From the highest highs to the lowest lows — from the euphoria of the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969, for example, to the devastation of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986 — it has more oscillations than the pendulum in a grandfather clock.

For NASA employees who love the science of space but not the politics of it, the result can be a dizzying mix of excitement and anxiety.

This year has been especially volatile.On the one hand, the agency has celebrated incredible achievements and milestones, such as the exhilarating close encounter that its Lucy spacecraft (launched in 2021) had with the asteroid Donaldjohanson in April, capturing and sending the first detailed images of the celestial body and the August launch with SpaceX of a new crew to the International Space Station.

On the other hand, the agency has been beset with challenges. In March, for instance, NASA announced plans to eliminate its Office of the Chief Scientist, as well as offices advising the agency on technology, strategy and diversity.

In July, hundreds of current and former employees signed a protest letter objecting to proposed budget reductions they said would threaten safety and jeopardize core missions.

Meanwhile, nearly 4,000 employees — approximately 20% of its workforce — have volunteered to leave NASA as part of President Donald Trump’s deferred resignation program.And then there’s the question of leadership: When former NASA Administrator Bill Nelson stepped down in January, Kennedy Space Center Director Janet Petro became acting NASA administrator.

In May, the president abruptly withdrew his pick, billionaire businessman and private astronaut Jared Isaacman, to permanently replace Petro and appointed Transportation secretary Sean Duffy as the new acting NASA administrator.

Duffy now serves in a dual capacity, leading NASA and the Department of Transportation simultaneously. In the shadow of so much change and uncertainty, he gave an exclusive interview and answered questions on a range of topics in which he discussed NASA’s biggest opportunities and challenges — and how he plans to lead the agency into what he calls a “Golden Age” of human space exploration.(This interview has been edited for length and clarity.)

Q: You took the reins of NASA as acting administrator in July. What’s your vision for the agency?Duffy: For far too long, NASA has coasted on the greatness of the Apollo era.

Make no mistake — we are still the greatest space agency in the world, responsible for a multitude of breakthroughs in science, aeronautics and exploration, but the American people need to know where we’re headed.

There was once a time when Apollo was a dinner table conversation, that everyone knew where NASA was going and why. I want to bring back that sense of national purpose.

I want to be able to run into a Walmart in middle America and ask a customer, “What’s NASA up to?” and hear them tell me about Artemis. I want Americans to know — Artemis means we’re going back to the moon, staying there, creating a base camp and then heading on to Mars.

We have our work cut out for us, and we’re up to the task. Together, we’ll execute the president’s vision for a golden age of innovation and human space exploration.

What are some of NASA’s recent achievements that most excite you as its new leader?The progress we’re making on Artemis II, our historic mission around the moon early next year. Our crew is training for their mission, and they continue to get familiar with their spacecraft, Orion.

They are practicing every phase of the mission from the time they suit up until they exit the spacecraft after splashing down in the Pacific.We’re also demonstrating American leadership with our work aboard the International Space Station.

We’re safely sending crews up to the station, and, just as important, returning them home safely. I had the opportunity to be at NASA for the return of Crew-9. It was a privilege to see two American heroes splash safely down in the Gulf of America.

We also launched Crew-11 this summer. Their research will directly contribute to deep space exploration, helping us learn more about how the human body adapts to long-duration spaceflight.We are also moving out on fission surface power at the moon.

I signed a directive to expedite our plans to put a nuclear reactor on the moon to power our future base. It will enable an American presence on the moon and tell the world we are there to conduct peaceful, enduring scientific exploration.

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>>23709652

You mentioned Artemis. It represents a game-changing chapter in NASA’s history, but there have been setbacks. Is it still NASA’s “North Star”?Artemis is the mission that drives us every day. It’s the most daring, technically challenging and collaborative international endeavor in history.

With Apollo, we landed on the moon’s equator. Under Artemis, we’re going to (the) south pole of the Moon — a much tougher and unforgiving target. It’s a place full of rugged terrain, extreme temperatures, varying lighting, creating the most challenging conditions to land, live and work.

But it’s also a place of great reward — a place where ice is present. That ice will tell us about the history of the solar system, and it could lead to lunar resource mining that will open new economic opportunities for American companies.

President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” contains special provisions that will fund new chapters of the program beyond Artemis III. What does the future hold?The Artemis campaign isn’t just about putting boot prints on the moon and then leaving.

It’s about getting us farther into the unknown than we’ve ever gone before and equipping our agency with the tools to pursue Manifest Destiny into the stars.The One Big Beautiful Bill Act gives NASA additional resources to protect America’s leadership in human space exploration.

Our priority is clear: Keep Artemis on track, return Americans to the moon to stay and take the first steps toward putting Americans on Mars.

And yet, the White House’s proposed FY 2026 budget seeks major cuts to NASA’s funding. How will those cuts — not to mention the president’s deferred resignation program and other downsizing decisions — affect planned missions?

We are building a leaner, more agile NASA that streamlines management layers, capitalizes on efficiencies and ensures every part of the agency is contributing directly to the mission. NASA is reprioritizing our focus and resources to provide the most value to the American people.

The end result will be a leaner, stronger, more focused NASA capable of returning us to the moon and expediting the timeline for an American to plant the Stars and Stripes on Mars. Our primary mission is space exploration, and we have sufficient resources and funding to accomplish that mission.

The commercial space sector continues to grow. How does NASA plan to continue leveraging partnerships with private companies?NASA’s partnerships with the commercial sector are absolutely critical to our success.

We leverage critical public-private partnerships for launch services, lunar landing systems, science and more. For example, we contract crew and cargo transportation services that private companies provide reliably and cost-effectively.

The agency is also investing in and encouraging development of commercial space stations to ensure a sustainable low-Earth orbit economy. This will create and sustain jobs for Americans across the nation.

NASA’s role will be to enable rather than compete with industry, such as advancing technologies that industry can then adopt and commercialize. Together, we’re further enhancing America’s leadership in space.

What are NASA’s most significant priorities going forward?The president’s budget makes one thing clear — America is back in the driver’s seat of space exploration.

Our top priorities are advancing Artemis, developing the next generation of human landing systems and building the technologies that will carry the first crew to Mars. Artemis II is being stacked right now.

Our crew is training for their mission. We have hardware being built for future Artemis missions.We’re adding new elements to the architecture to ensure a lasting presence, like fission surface power.The future of space exploration is here, and the United States is leading it.

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>>23709610

The dog ate them

Blue Origin Completes 36th New Shepard Flight to Space

Oct 8, 2025

Today, Blue Origin successfully completed the 36th flight for the New Shepard program.

The crew included: Jeff Elgin, Danna Karagussova, Clint Kelly III, Will Lewis, Aaron Newman, and Vitalii Ostrovsky.

New Shepard has now flown 86 humans (80 individuals) into space.

"Today’s mission is a testament to the relentless spirit of exploration exhibited by this crew," said Phil Joyce, SVP, New Shepard.

"We are reminded of the profound effect that seeing Earth from above has on each astronaut.

This experience fosters a deeper connection to our planet and drives us to continue working together to push the boundaries of what is possible."

Go here to fly on a future New Shepard mission. Commemorative merchandise from today’s mission can be purchased at the Blue Origin Shop.

In case you missed it, view a full replay of today’s flight below.

https://www.blueorigin.com/news/new-shepard-ns-36-mission

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4TG9F5-3uY

A New Paper Studied Whether NASA Actually Saves Money by Hiring Corporations to Build New Spacecraft, and the Results Are Embarrassing

Oct 7, 2025 12:10 PM EDT

For decades, NASA has increasingly leaned on corporate contractors to develop the spacecraft it uses to explore the solar system.

Triumphs have included SpaceX’s Dragon vehicles, which can now reliably shuttle astronauts to the International Space Station and beyond.

The widely parroted idea is that players in the free market will be able to operate more efficiently than NASA’s own stock of engineers, who masterminded the agency’s triumphs of decades past, like the Apollo Moon missions and the Space Shuttle.

But are corporations actually more efficient at realizing NASA’s goals? A recent paper in the Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets set out to settle the score through a close look at the finances of 69 space-faring projects of all sizes, including 22 spacecraft built by NASA, and 47 by the private sector.

For proponents of corporate partnerships with NASA, the results are embarrassing: the paper found that the contractors were just as inefficient as the government. And as the Financial Times flagged, in some cases NASA was even more efficient than industry.

The private sector weather-observation satellite, Suomi NPP, for example, was built by a constellation of firms like Raytheon and Ball Aerospace for $922 in 2012, adjusted for inflation.

By comparison, the near-polar orbit observation satellite FAST , developed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, had a budget of just $73 million, adjusted for inflation.

Though spacecraft defined as class C and class D — less publicized, low-risk projects — tended to be cheaper when built by the private sector, the difference quickly evaporates with more important class A and B projects like the $558 million OSIRIS-REx, developed by Lockheed.

Essentially, the paper finds, corporations excel at building spacecraft where lower quality components can be mass-manufactured with “less oversight,” but face the same constraints as NASA when development becomes more complex.

“The results suggest that the cost of spacecraft does not depend on the developer type for Class A/B projects,” the paper’s authors write.

This flies in the face of some free-market utopian fantasies parroted by billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, who argue that the private market is naturally the more efficient option.

Instead, the researchers find, spacecraft complexity — not the spacecraft’s developer — was the key metric influencing build cost.

Unfortunately, the paper may be falling on deaf ears. Since rising to office, the Trump administration, with a helping hand from Musk, has gutted some 20 percent of NASA’s staff, including over 2,000 senior staffers with “core mission” experience.

Musk’s SpaceX, meanwhile, has been handed the keys to the proverbial kingdom, to the frustration of even his fellow space tycoons.

We can even see the paper’s results at work in the real world: in 2021, SpaceX accepted a multibillion-dollar contract with NASA to return American astronauts to the Moon using its still-struggling Starship — which, no matter how you feel about the issue, will be an extremely public and high-stakes test of the role of corporate contractors at NASA.

https://futurism.com/future-society/research-study-nasa-corporations-efficiency

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/395076109_In_and_Out_Comparative_Analysis_of_NASA_and_Industry_Spacecraft_Costs

AST SpaceMobile Announces Definitive Commercial Agreement with Verizon to Support Space-Based Cellular Broadband Across the Continental United States

Oct 8, 2025 7:30 AM Eastern Daylight Time

MIDLAND, Texas(BUSINESS WIRE)AST SpaceMobile, Inc. (“AST SpaceMobile”) (NASDAQ: ASTS), the company building the first and only space-based cellular broadband network accessible directly by everyday smartphones, designed for both commercial and government applications, today announced the signing of a definitive commercial agreement with Verizon (NYSE, NASDAQ: VZ) to provide direct-to-cellular AST SpaceMobile service when needed for Verizon customers starting in 2026.

This service will further enhance Verizon's already expansive and award-winning network, building upon the exceptional service and ubiquitous connectivity customers currently enjoy.

The combination of Verizon’s highly reliable terrestrial mobile network, the use of premium multi-operator 850 MHz cellular spectrum, and AST SpaceMobile’s next-generation space-based cellular network in low Earth orbit, is planned to enable cellular customers to stay connected wherever they are, from hiking trails to city centers and everywhere in between.

Featuring the largest-ever commercial communications arrays deployed in low Earth orbit, AST SpaceMobile's network can connect directly to everyday smartphones, eliminating the need for specialized equipment.

AST SpaceMobile’s network is designed to operate across premium low-band spectrum, the company’s own licensed L-band and S-band spectrum, and up to 1,150 MHz of mobile network operator partners’ low- and mid-band spectrum, globally.

These capabilities advance AST SpaceMobile’s efforts toward commercial service.

“Through our definitive commercial agreement with Verizon, we are working to deliver space-based cellular broadband coverage from space across the continental United States,” said Abel Avellan, Founder, Chairman and CEO of AST SpaceMobile.

“The agreement will extend the scope of Verizon’s 850 MHz premium low-band spectrum into areas of the U.S. that would benefit from the ubiquitous reach of space-based broadband technology.”

Proven Technology Through Successful Trials

This agreement follows testing milestones that have proven the capabilities of the AST SpaceMobile network. In a recent demonstration, the companies successfully completed direct voice and video calls, as well as two-way RCS messaging, between standard, unmodified smartphones and a BlueBird satellite in space.

A crystal-clear Voice over LTE (VoLTE) call was made from a smartphone on Verizon's network in Texas, connecting via an AST SpaceMobile satellite to another Verizon smartphone in New Jersey.

These successful tests represent a significant leap in satellite-to-cellular technology and pave the way for a future of ubiquitous connectivity.

"This partnership with AST SpaceMobile is a good step forward in our mission to build a seamlessly connected world.

We are not just filling in the map; we are creating a new paradigm of connectivity that will unlock the full potential of the digital age,” said Srini Kalapala, Senior Vice President of Technology and Product Development at Verizon.

“By integrating our expansive, reliable, robust terrestrial network with this innovative space-based technology, we are paving the way for a future where everything and everyone can be connected, regardless of geography.”

About AST SpaceMobile

AST SpaceMobile is building the first and only global cellular broadband network in space to operate directly with standard, unmodified mobile devices and designed for both commercial and government applications.

Our engineers and space scientists are on a mission to eliminate the connectivity gaps faced by today’s five billion mobile subscribers and finally bring broadband to the billions who remain unconnected.

For more information, follow AST SpaceMobile on YouTube, X (formerly Twitter), LinkedIn and Facebook. Watch this video for an overview of the SpaceMobile mission.

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20251008175159/en/AST-SpaceMobile-Announces-Definitive-Commercial-Agreement-with-Verizon-to-Support-Space-Based-Cellular-Broadband-Across-the-Continental-United-States

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO9-SBCq8oY

>>23709644

The remaining 60% is out there for anyone wanting to read between the lines and piece it together

>>23709799

Remember when they kicked us square in the balls?

We seem to be more than on track now to cancel the apocalypse.

Deorbiting Just 50 Pieces of Space Debris Could Dramatically Improve Low Earth Orbit

October 8, 2025

A new paper has listed the top 50 most problematic pieces of space debris currently in low Earth orbit (LEO).

Most of them are from the last century and pose a serious risk of breaking into finer, more multitudinous, and harder-to-track pieces of debris in the coming years.

The paper, presented Friday at the International Astronautical Congress, suggests that deorbiting just the top 50 pieces would reduce the future debris potential for LEO by up to 50%.

The problem of space debris has been discussed since the 1950s, and in the 1970s, the idea of it limiting space activity entirely became known as the Kessler Syndrome.

While we're fortunately still a long way from such a reality, the issue of debris cascade is still very real, and some specific pieces of space debris can potentially be extremely problematic.

Of the top 50 objects, 34 are Russian or Soviet Union in origin, 10 are from China, three are from the USA, two are from Europe, and one is from Japan.

The top 10, as Ars Technica puts it, has a similar makeup and includes:

A Russian SL-16 rocket launched in 2004

Europe's Envisat satellite launched in 2002

A Japanese H-II rocket launched in 1996

A Chinese CZ-2C rocket launched in 2013

A Soviet SL-8 rocket launched in 1985

A Soviet SL-16 rocket launched in 1988

Russia's Kosmos 2237 satellite launched in 1993

Russia's Kosmos 2334 satellite launched in 1996

A Soviet SL-16 rocket launched in 1988

A Chinese CZ-2D rocket launched in 2019

These potential sources of debris are so problematic that removing just these 10 from orbit would eliminate some 30% of future potential debris. Deorbiting the top 50 would cut it by 50%.

Unfortunately, although the technology exists and has been demonstrably shown to be capable of deorbiting even large debris, there isn't much incentive to use it.

It's prohibitively expensive, and there isn't the kind of communal funding available that would make any one nation or space organization willing to do the job.

It's not going to get easier, though. Although US and European spacecraft are all mandated to deorbit themselves within 25 years of abandoning orbit, that's not necessarily the case with other space agencies.

The report highlights that since the start of 2024, China has left 26 upper-stage rocket bodies in orbit that are likely to remain for longer than 25 years.

There are also concerns around the increasing popularity of satellite constellations, potentially encouraging future debris buildup.

https://www.extremetech.com/aerospace/deorbiting-just-50-pieces-of-space-debris-could-dramatically-improve-low

>>23709931