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3I/ATLAS Maintained a Sunward Jet After Its Gravitational Deflection by 16 Degrees at Perihelion

Avi Loeb Medium

By Avi Loeb Medium
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Image of the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS (top left panel) from a 0.25-meter telescope in Calabria, Italy, taken on December 15, 2025 at 1:58 UTC with 1.38 arcseconds per pixel — corresponding to 3,850 kilometers at the source distance. The other three panels show a brightness map at different wavelength bands centered on 0.658 [R], 0.53 (Green) and 0.445 (Blue) micrometers, using a Larson-Sekanina gradient filter. Their field of view spans 1.6 by 0.7 million kilometers and shows a prominent tightly-collimated anti-tail jet from 3I/ATLAS in the sunward direction, towards the bottom left corner. (Image credit: Toni Scarmato)

The near alignment of the rotation axis of the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS with the sunward direction at large distances (as discussed here and here) could have been spoiled after perihelion.

The rotation axis can remain fixed if no torque acts on 3I/ATLAS. However, the direction of motion of 3I/ATLAS was shifted by the following angle (in radians) at perihelion:

2GM/(b*v²)= 0.286=16.4 degrees,

where G is Newton’s constant, M is the mass of the Sun, b=202 million kilometers is the perihelion distance and v=68 kilometers per second is the perihelion speed.

Remarkably, this deflection angle is twice the opening angle of the anti-tail jet, which was observed to span about 8 degrees out to a distance of order a million kilometers in the latest images of 3I/ATLAS from December 15, 2025 (as discussed here). If one edge of the jet’s cone overlapped with the sunward direction before perihelion, then the other edge of an identical jet cone on the opposite pole of 3I/ATLAS overlaps with the sunward direction after perihelion.

As 3I/ATLAS approach perigee on December 19, 2025, the time is ripe to summarize all the anomalies of 3I/ATLAS, organized by themes:

Geometric Coincidences:

1. The retrograde trajectory of 3I/ATLAS is aligned to within 5 degrees with the ecliptic plane of the planets around the Sun, with a probability of 0.2% (as discussed here). This suggests that the trajectory may have been planned.

2. The arrival time of 3I/ATLAS was fine-tuned to bring it to 29 and 54 million kilometers from Mars and Jupiter, respectively, and be unobservable from Earth at perihelion (as discussed here).

3. The forecasted perijove distance of 3I/ATLAS during its encounter with Jupiter on March 16, 2026 is 53.6 million kilometers, close to Jupiter’s Hill radius, 53.5 million kilometers (as discussed here). This match includes the non-gravitational acceleration that 3I/ATLAS displayed near perihelion. The rare coincidence might mean that 3I/ATLAS intends to release technological devices at Jupiter’s Lagrange points — where fuel requirements are minimal.

4. Analysis of the Hubble Space Telescope image from July 21, 2025 (as discussed here) suggests that the anti-tail before perihelion must have been in the form of a tightly collimated jet that is about ten times longer than it is wide. This is similar to the tight collimation observed in the latest post-perihelion images. It is difficult to understand how the sublimation of pockets of ice as a result of illumination by sunlight would lead to tightly collimated jets out to a million kilometers. No known comet exhibited a physical sunward jet of this length. For a technological object, a beam of particles might be used to mitigate the risk from the solar wind that would otherwise impact its surface at a relative speed of order 500 kilometers per second and release a hundred thousand times more energy per unit mass than explosives.

5. At large distances, the rotation axis of 3I/ATLAS was aligned to within 8 degrees with the sunward direction when it entered the solar system (as reported here). The probability for that is 0.5%.

6. The observed wobble of the pre-perihelion jet in the direction of the Sun (as reported here during July and August 2025) requires the base of the jet to be within 8 degrees from the sun-facing pole, with probability of 0.5%.

7. The existence of a prominent jet towards the Sun on the way of 3I/ATLAS out of the solar system requires a similar coincidence near the opposite pole of the rotation axis. The fact that a tightly collimated jet appears as the sunward anti-tail both before and after perihelion (while reversing direction at perihelion relative to the direction of motion), has a tiny probability of occurring at random, equal to the square of 0.5% or 0.000025.

8. The launch base of the post-perihelion anti-tail jet resided on the nightside of 3I/ATLAS before perihelion and the base of the pre-perihelion anti-tail jet is now on the nightside of 3I/ATLAS after perihelion. For these bases to be active only when facing the Sun, they must be well insulated on the nightside for a period longer than several months. However, heat would naturally flow by conduction throughout the body of a natural comet, making this insulation requirement difficult to satisfy.

9. The gravitational deflection of 3I/ATLAS by 16 degrees at perihelion, is exactly twice the opening angle of the anti-tail jet. This coincidence allows the wobbling jet around the rotation axis to generate an anti-tail in the direction of the Sun before perihelion and a counter jet on the opposite pole after perihelion, with a jet opening angle of 8 degrees on both poles.

10. 3I/ATLAS arrived from a direction coincident with the radio “Wow! Signal” to within 9 degrees, with a probability of 0.6% (as discussed here).

Composition Anomalies of the Gas Shed by 3I/ATLAS:

11. The gas plume surrounding 3I/ATLAS contains much more nickel than iron, as found in industrially-produced nickel alloys, and a nickel to cyanide ratio that is orders of magnitude larger than for thousands of known comets, including 2I/Borisov (see here). This might indicate a technological origin for these abundances.

12. The gas plume surrounding 3I/ATLAS contains only 4% water by mass, whereas water is a dominant constituent in familiar solar-system comets (as discussed here). The plume might have resulted from the sunlight releasing the ices and dust that accumulated on the surface of a technological object during its journey through cold dense clouds of the interstellar medium.

Unusual Physical Properties:

13. The nucleus of 3I/ATLAS is much more massive than 1I/`Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov, while moving faster than both (as discussed here and here). There might not be enough rocky material in interstellar space to deliver a natural iceberg of this mass once per decade to the inner solar system (as discussed here). This suggests that 3I/ATLAS may have targeted the inner solar system rather than being drawn at random from the reservoir of interstellar icebergs.

14. 3I/ATLAS shows extreme negative polarization, unprecedented for all known comets, including 2I/Borisov (as discussed here). This unusual polarization may be related to its unusual anti-tail.

15. Near perihelion, 3I/ATLAS brightened faster than any known comet and was bluer than the Sun (as discussed here).

It is important to keep in mind that other technological civilizations could have used the foundation of a natural object to plant technological devices within it (as discussed here). Whether we encounter a “Trojan Horse” can be decided only through a careful study of the anomalies that distinguish 3I/ATLAS from familiar comets.

As announced here, the International Asteroid Warning Network is conducting a Planetary Defense campaign to collect as much data as possible on 3I/ATLAS between November 27, 2025 and January 27, 2026. Once this data is made public, I will update my rank for 3I/ATLAS on the Loeb Classification Scale (as quantified here and here). In a new paper that I co-authored with the brilliant PhD student Oem Trivedi (posted today here), we provided the mathematical framework for updating the Loeb scale of interstellar objects over time.

Irrespective of the true nature of 3I/ATLAS, my New Year’s resolution is simple. Starting on the early morning of December 19, 2025, I will keep looking up in the direction 3I/ATLAS during my future daily jogs before sunrise.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

1*LE3Xlzc3hNG5VDAGlDP8KQ.jpeg
(Image Credit: Chris Michel, National Academy of Sciences, 2023)

Avi Loeb is the head of the Galileo Project, founding director of Harvard University’s — Black Hole Initiative, director of the Institute for Theory and Computation at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and the former chair of the astronomy department at Harvard University (2011–2020). He is a former member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and a former chair of the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Academies. He is the bestselling author of “Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth” and a co-author of the textbook “Life in the Cosmos”, both published in 2021. The paperback edition of his new book, titled “Interstellar”, was published in August 2024.

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