The ATLAS Collaboration released for the first time open data for research. This release comprises 65 TB of proton--proton collision data from the Large Hadron Collider in 2015 and 2016, and over 300 samples of Standard Model and Beyond the Standard Model Monte Carlo simulations, in a light data format. With this release, the collaboration invites the worldwide community of scientists to participate in High Energy Physics research. To make this possible and accessible, the release includes documentation, open tools and tutorials, as well as support channels. The future plans of this project include the release of all lead--lead collisions from 2015 run in a light format, along with new documentation and tutorials.