Overview
- Post‑perihelion images on Nov. 8–9 reveal a complex, multi‑jet structure including sunward anti‑tails extending roughly 0.95 million km and a longer jet in the opposite direction reaching about 2.85 million km.
- JPL analysts reported a small non‑gravitational acceleration, while observers logged rapid brightening near perihelion and unusual morphology, with some early views noting an apparently missing tail.
- Harvard’s Avi Loeb contends the mass‑loss rate may have surged from about 150 kg/s in August to roughly 2 million kg/s near perihelion, a jump he argues could indicate fragmentation, though this remains unconfirmed.
- Other astronomers favor a natural cometary explanation; researcher Qicheng Zhang says evidence does not show the gas coma changing colors, noting a bluish‑green coma was already visible by early September.
- 3I/ATLAS will pass closest to Earth on Dec. 19 at about 269 million km, with Hubble and JWST observations planned to probe its jets and composition; NASA states the object poses no immediate threat.