🚨The Mystery of 3I/ATLAS: Its Producing Its Own Light
On July 21st, 2025, Hubble locked its eye on the newest interstellar visitor to our solar system: 3I/ATLAS.
What it revealed doesn’t fit the usual categories of comet or asteroid. The data is weird. Let’s unpack it. 🧵
On July 21st, 2025, Hubble locked its eye on the newest interstellar visitor to our solar system: 3I/ATLAS.
What it revealed doesn’t fit the usual categories of comet or asteroid. The data is weird. Let’s unpack it. 🧵
2/
The Hubble image shows something surprising.
Instead of a cometary tail streaming away from the Sun, 3I/ATLAS has a glow of light in front of it, on the side facing the Sun.
Like it’s pushing light ahead of itself.
The Hubble image shows something surprising.
Instead of a cometary tail streaming away from the Sun, 3I/ATLAS has a glow of light in front of it, on the side facing the Sun.
Like it’s pushing light ahead of itself.
3/
That glow isn’t just strange in shape, it’s strange in structure.
When astronomers plotted brightness against distance from the nucleus, they got a power-law slope of -4.
To translate, the light drops off much faster than any normal comet we know.
That glow isn’t just strange in shape, it’s strange in structure.
When astronomers plotted brightness against distance from the nucleus, they got a power-law slope of -4.
To translate, the light drops off much faster than any normal comet we know.
4/
In solar system comets, dust follows a -2 slope. With scattered sunlight, you’d expect the profile to stay that way.
But 3I/ATLAS falls off twice as steep.
It’s like the glow is being lit from inside, not just reflecting sunlight.
In solar system comets, dust follows a -2 slope. With scattered sunlight, you’d expect the profile to stay that way.
But 3I/ATLAS falls off twice as steep.
It’s like the glow is being lit from inside, not just reflecting sunlight.
5/
That’s the bombshell idea Avi Loeb and Eric Keto floated. The dust cloud could be illuminated by a central light source.
In that case, the steep profile makes sense.
Density falls as 1/R², light falls as 1/R², total = 1/R⁴.
Exactly what’s observed.
That’s the bombshell idea Avi Loeb and Eric Keto floated. The dust cloud could be illuminated by a central light source.
In that case, the steep profile makes sense.
Density falls as 1/R², light falls as 1/R², total = 1/R⁴.
Exactly what’s observed.
6/
If true, 3I/ATLAS could be way smaller than originally thought.
The “boring” model just of sunlight bouncing off a rock requires a monster 20 km across. Statistically absurd.
The central light source model shrinks it under 100 meters.
Now it looks more like Oumuamua.
If true, 3I/ATLAS could be way smaller than originally thought.
The “boring” model just of sunlight bouncing off a rock requires a monster 20 km across. Statistically absurd.
The central light source model shrinks it under 100 meters.
Now it looks more like Oumuamua.
7/
So, what’s powering the light?
Not thermal glow, unless it’s over 1000 K.
Not Hawking radiation from a primordial black hole (far too weak).
Not likely just evaporating ice, it doesn’t match the profile, and there’s no classic tail.
So, what’s powering the light?
Not thermal glow, unless it’s over 1000 K.
Not Hawking radiation from a primordial black hole (far too weak).
Not likely just evaporating ice, it doesn’t match the profile, and there’s no classic tail.
8/
Could it be radioactive debris from a supernova core? Maybe, but insanely unlikely.
Could it be friction with interstellar gas? The math doesn’t hold, the medium isn’t dense enough.
That leaves two live options:
Either a very rare natural mechanism… or technology.
Could it be radioactive debris from a supernova core? Maybe, but insanely unlikely.
Could it be friction with interstellar gas? The math doesn’t hold, the medium isn’t dense enough.
That leaves two live options:
Either a very rare natural mechanism… or technology.
9/
Loeb even floated the possibility of 3I/ATLAS as a nuclear powered spacecraft.
In that scenario, the dust we see could be residue picked up across interstellar space, sloughing off as it nears the Sun.
Not proof granted, but not impossible either.
Loeb even floated the possibility of 3I/ATLAS as a nuclear powered spacecraft.
In that scenario, the dust we see could be residue picked up across interstellar space, sloughing off as it nears the Sun.
Not proof granted, but not impossible either.
10/
And the timing is just insane. Oumuamua came in 2017, Borisov followed in 2019, and now ATLAS in 2025.
Three interstellar visitors in under a decade, after millennia with none we could confirm.
What are the odds?
And the timing is just insane. Oumuamua came in 2017, Borisov followed in 2019, and now ATLAS in 2025.
Three interstellar visitors in under a decade, after millennia with none we could confirm.
What are the odds?
11/
Trajectory adds fuel to the fire because 3I/ATLAS is on a fine tuned path, and on October 3, 2025, it will skim within 29 million km of Mars.
That’s close enough for NASA’s HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to snap it.
Trajectory adds fuel to the fire because 3I/ATLAS is on a fine tuned path, and on October 3, 2025, it will skim within 29 million km of Mars.
That’s close enough for NASA’s HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to snap it.
12/
Loeb says he’s already asked the HiRISE team to point their lens at it. They seemed open to it.
If that happens, we could get a close look at the first interstellar object ever imaged up close by a spacecraft.
Loeb says he’s already asked the HiRISE team to point their lens at it. They seemed open to it.
If that happens, we could get a close look at the first interstellar object ever imaged up close by a spacecraft.
13/
The big picture is if 3I/ATLAS is natural, it’s still unusual, forcing us to rethink what kinds of objects roam between stars.
If it’s artificial, then we’re staring at the first hard evidence of technology beyond Earth.
Either way, it matters.
The big picture is if 3I/ATLAS is natural, it’s still unusual, forcing us to rethink what kinds of objects roam between stars.
If it’s artificial, then we’re staring at the first hard evidence of technology beyond Earth.
Either way, it matters.
14/
Oumuamua gave us mystery.
Borisov gave us a “normal” interstellar comet.
3I/ATLAS is giving us new puzzles.
We’re not done yet, the story of interstellar objects is just beginning.
Source:
#3IATLAS #UAP #Space #oumuamua #ufotwitter #uapXavi-loeb.medium.com/does-3i-atlas-…
Oumuamua gave us mystery.
Borisov gave us a “normal” interstellar comet.
3I/ATLAS is giving us new puzzles.
We’re not done yet, the story of interstellar objects is just beginning.
Source:
#3IATLAS #UAP #Space #oumuamua #ufotwitter #uapXavi-loeb.medium.com/does-3i-atlas-…
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