Anti-tail of 3I/Atlas ‘flipped’ and comprises one thing not seen in regular comets
Hubble Space Telescope images taken before and after perihelion reveal that the object’s anti-tail has reversed its orientation relative to the direction of motion
Scientists are still grappling with the baffling behaviour of the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS, with Professor Avi Loeb arguing that its unusual anti-tail has “flipped” and must contain “something else” not seen in ordinary comets.
Writing in his new piece on Medium, Loeb says there is “no doubt that we can learn something new” from 3I/ATLAS, whether it is an icy body or something more unconventional.
He criticises what he calls “the arrogance of expertise” among comet specialists who claim authority on interstellar visitors despite having only two previous examples to compare with, namely 1I/`Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov.
According to Loeb, 3I/ATLAS already shows 13 anomalies relative to both. High-resolution Hubble Space Telescope images taken before and after perihelion reveal that the object’s anti-tail has reversed its orientation relative to the direction of motion.
Loeb stresses that this is not a trick of perspective, as sometimes seen in Solar System comets. The question, he argues, is what physics could account for an anti-tail behaving in such a way.
Microscopic dust would ordinarily be pushed away from the Sun by radiation pressure and the solar wind. Loeb therefore concludes that the anti-tail “must contain something else”.
He has published three papers proposing potential explanations: evaporating fragments of ice that disappear before being turned around by radiation pressure, or much larger debris pieces that are not strongly influenced by solar forces.
Loeb questions why comet researchers and NASA officials appear unwilling to show curiosity about these features.
To illustrate the value of pursuing anomalies, he points to recent neutrino research. Two major experiments were designed to test earlier reports suggesting the existence of sterile neutrinos that do not interact with matter. Both investigations, published in Nature, failed to find evidence supporting the idea.
One study from the MicroBooNE experiment ruled out a simple sterile neutrino explanation for anomalies reported by LSND and MiniBooNE, while a second study from the KATRIN experiment analysed 36 million beta-decay electrons and found no sign of the hypothesised particle.
Loeb notes that the combined cost of these projects was around 90 million dollars, yet the attempt to test an exotic hypothesis was still considered valuable science.
By contrast, he argues that discussion of interstellar anomalies such as those seen in `Oumuamua or 3I/ATLAS is often dismissed before evidence is properly examined. He highlights criticism from Chris Lintott, who described broader interpretations as “nonsense on stilts” only weeks after 3I/ATLAS was discovered.
Loeb has now written 11 papers on 3I/ATLAS. In his first, he originally concluded that a sufficiently large solid object might have reached the inner Solar System through “technological design”, but his editor Lintott demanded that the statement be removed during peer review.
This led Loeb to co-author a full paper exploring technological possibilities.
He argues that sterile neutrinos attracted serious scientific attention despite ultimately being disproven, yet discussion of technological origins for interstellar objects is met with hostility.
Given the potential relevance of alien technology to humanity’s future, Loeb insists that such ideas deserve proper scientific consideration rather than premature dismissal.
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