How Open NASA Data on Comet 3I/ATLAS Will Power Tomorrow’s Discoveries

The interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS will soon leave our solar system, never to return, but the observations of the comet will live on in NASA's public data archives. More than a dozen NASA science missions turned their instruments to observe the comet, which is only the third identified object to be visiting our solar system from interstellar space.

The NASA-funded ground-based ATLAS (Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System) survey telescope in Rio Hurtado, Chile first discovered 3I/ATLAS July 1, 2025. However, queries to another NASA data archive revealed that the comet first appeared on camera long before its official identification in July.

NASA's TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite), which scans the sky for planets outside our solar system, has a wide field of view that happened to capture 3I/ATLAS in May 2025. This allowed astronomers to better track the comet's trajectory and understand more about its path through the solar system. TESS data is publicly available in the NASA-funded Barbara A.