Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS is losing an insane amount of mass after making its closest pass of the sun last month — a phenomenon known as perihelion — prompting Harvard scientist Avi Loeb to speculate that the object might have fragmented into over a dozen pieces.

NASA has released close-up images of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS after being delayed during the government shutdown. NBC News' Gadi Schwartz talks to Harvard Professor Avi Loeb on what he took away from the images.

I/ATLAS will soon make its closes flyby to Earth. When this happens, Avi Loeb said that all questions could be answered.

Meanwhile, the ESA’s (European Space Agency) Mars-based Trace Gas Orbiter spacecraft has snapped a few images that the agency has published on social media. ESA remarked that they “pinpointed the comet's path with 10 times more accuracy, using data from ” ESA ExoMars TGO probe.