Overview
- Avi Loeb reported that a November 9 image captured narrow, collimated rays extending over a million kilometers from 3I/ATLAS, which he argued should have been blurred by rotation.
- Loeb floated a speculative idea that persistent ray direction could reflect propulsion-like activity, while also noting the rays might trace material shed from the nucleus.
- Images cited from November 11 indicated the object remained an intact, active body after its close pass by the Sun, with no clear signs of fragmentation.
- Russian scientist Nathan Eismont countered that the object's motion, including nongravitational acceleration, matches standard comet behavior driven by gas and dust outflows.
- 3I/ATLAS, discovered July 1 by the ATLAS survey, is the third known interstellar object; earlier reports noted a roughly 24-kilometer-wide coma, color changes, and claims of apparent self-luminosity that remain unconfirmed in origin.