Overview
- Post‑perihelion photographs taken November 8–9 reveal a multi‑jet morphology with two sunward anti‑tail jets and a long, collimated tail, with features stretching roughly 0.95 million km toward the Sun and about 2.85 million km away.
- South Africa’s MeerKAT array detected hydroxyl (OH) absorption at 1665/1667 MHz on October 24, a signature associated with outgassing, bolstering the case that 3I/ATLAS is behaving as a comet.
- JPL has reported a small non‑gravitational acceleration, which specialists say is consistent with outgassing; NASA officials continue to stress that the object poses no threat to Earth.
- Spectroscopic work reported in a preprint suggests an unusually high CO2/H2O ratio, and researchers propose galactic cosmic‑ray surface processing as a natural explanation, a conclusion still under review.
- Avi Loeb argues the recent brightening and jet lengths imply extreme mass loss and possible fragmentation, and he continues to float technological hypotheses, but most small‑bodies experts describe the object as an unusual yet natural comet.