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Top panel: Images of 3I/ATLAS, taken in the wavelength range of 0.75–5.0 microns between the 8 and 15 of December, 2025. Each image spans 300,00 kilometers on a side. The brightness contours represent 5, 20 and 50 times the background noise; color bars are in mega-Jansky per steradian. The celestial North-and-East directions are shown by black arrows, along with the anti-velocity (dashed-blue) and anti-sun (solid-red) directions. On these large scales, the brightness map of dust and organics was found to be pear-shaped, with an anti-tail elongation in the direction of the Sun. All six other gas plumes were found to be nearly round. Middle panel: Flux spectrophotometry (points), colored by observation date (right color bar) and normalized to equal distances between 3I/ATLAS, the Earth, the Sun (=1 AU). The major spectral emissions of various gas species [CN(0.93microns), H2O(2.7–2.8 microns), Organics(3.2–3.6 microns), CO2(4.2–4.3 microns), and CO(4.7–4.8 microns)] have been color coded. Bottom: Reflectance-Spectrum, given by the flux ratio between 3I/ATLAS and the Sun. The dust spectrum can be described by scattered sunlight and thermal emission. The signature of sub-micron dust particles that would have enhanced the blue color via Rayleigh scattering are absent. Moreover, these small particles would have also been subjected to strong solar radiation-pressure effects and would have formed the standard cometary tail, extending away from the Sun — which is not observed. (Credit: C.M. Lisse et al. 2026)

A new paper led by Carey Lisse (accessible here) reports large-scale images of the gas plume around the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS after perihelion, based on data collected last month by the SPHEREx space observatory. The data show enhanced mass loss of dust and gas around 3I/ATLAS.

The new images of 3I/ATLAS were taken in the wavelength range of 0.75–5.0 microns between the 8 and 15 of December, 2025. Each image spans 300,00 kilometers on a side. On these large scales, the brightness maps of dust and organics were found to be pear-shaped, with an anti-tail elongation in the direction of the Sun. All six other gas plumes were found to be nearly round. The major gas species were identified as: cyanide (CN, at a wavelength of 0.93 microns), water (H2O, in the wavelength range of 2.7–2.8 microns), Organics (C-H, between 3.2–3.6 microns), carbon-dioxide (CO2, 4.2–4.3 microns), and carbon-monoxide (CO, 4.7–4.8 microns). The CO2 gas-plume continues to extend out to a few hundreds of thousands of kilometers. The dust spectrum can be described as the sum of scattered sunlight and thermal emission.

Most notably, the signature of sub-micron dust particles that would have enhanced the blue color via Rayleigh scattering are absent. Moreover, these small particles would have also been subjected to a strong solar radiation-pressure and would have formed the standard cometary tail, extending away from the Sun — which is not observed — as I argued in an essay, posted here on December 25, 2026.

Compared to the pre-perihelion data reported from SPHEREx in August 2025, the continuum spectral signature of water-ice absorption has mostly disappeared, replaced by scattered-light plus thermal-emission from organo-silicaceous dust grains, while the water-gas emission is twenty times (!) brighter than it was before perihelion. The new appearance of cyanide (CN) and organic features suggests that these species are contained in the water phases.

The new mass loss rate of water (H2O) is 180 kilograms per second, similar to the new mass loss rate of carbon dioxide (CO2), with both being two-thirds of the carbon-monoxide (CO) mass loss rate. The brightness maps suggest that cyanide and organics are sourced from the dust, while the H2O, CO2, and CO-gas originate from a symmetric region centered on the nucleus.

The pear-shaped dust anti-tail is consistent with large dust grains. The gas production of 3I/ATLAS had been shown to be dominated by icy fragments in the pre-perihelion imaging of 3I/ATLAS by SPHEREx (as reported here and argued in the paper I co-authored with Eric Keto here). These fragments would have had to be thick, possible more than 10-meters in diameter, in order to preserve deep unprocessed material. Last month, I published a paper here, explaining the large extent of the anti-tail glow towards the Sun in this context.

As the authors of the new paper admit, this inference raises a new anomaly concerning 3I/ATLAS. It implies a huge amount of dust mass, because these same large boulders have to provide enough surface area to make the gas plume a hundred times brighter than the nucleus in reflected sunlight. We know that the fragments must be larger than a millimeter, because there is no evidence for a radiation-pressure dominated cometary tail of fine dust.

The nature of the scattered sunlight in the glowing halo around 3I/ATLAS has also fundamentally changed around perihelion, from an ice-dominated reflectance spectrum into that of low-albedo dust dominated by bluish light scattering.

The SPHEREx data demonstrates once again that science is a learning experience. We need more data to guide us about the proper resolution of the above-mentioned anomaly. We should not be surprised to find out that objects arriving at our cosmic backyard in the inner solar system from the cosmic street of interstellar space, are different from the familiar icy rocks we had seen before.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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(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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