Manhattan-sized interstellar object 3I/ATLAS loses tail after passing Sun, defying conventional explanations

The mysterious Manhattan-sized interstellar object 3I/ATLAS appears to have no cometary tail in new images, which would eliminate the conventional explanation for the surprising “non-gravitational acceleration” it exhibited last week, startling new images show.

Photographs taken by the R. Naves Observatory in Spain on Nov. 5, showed no sign of a tail of debris which was expected to be shooting off behind the object as it encountered the force of the sun.

An estimated 13% of the nucleus should be visibly trailing the 33 billion-ton object as it reemerged into view of planet Earth’s telescopes, Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb said.

But with no tail in sight, Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb is suggesting that this is yet another indicator that the object could be an artificial alien craft.

“For a typical comet, [passing the sun] should have resulted in a massive coma with dust and gas that would have been pushed by the solar radiation pressure and the solar wind to the shape of  a typical cometary tail pointing away from the Sun,” Loeb wrote in an analysis of the images on Wednesday.

Instead, the object appears intact and showing “a compact source of light,” Loeb wrote.

Loeb stated that the angle of the new images was 10 degrees away from the sun in the sky, and this narrow angle could be why we are not seeing a cometary tail. However, as 3I/ATLAS continues to move on its path, the angle will widen and more detailed measurements will be available.

“This offers a clean test of the nature of 3I/ATLAS in the coming weeks,” he told The Post. “If 3I/ATLAS is a natural comet, it should be surrounded by a massive cloud of gas that carries at least 13 percent of the original nucleus mass.”

If 3I/ATLAS fails to produce a cometary tail, Loeb maintained that it is likely not a naturally occurring comet.

3I/ATLAS is now moving beyond the purview of Earth and is on the way toward Jupiter, where it will closely pass on March 16. It first entered our Solar System on June 14.

Two orbiters, one from NASA and another from the European Space Agency, will make observations of 3I/ATLAS during this last phase of its journey.

The world is still awaiting the release of what is expected to be the best images of object which were taken by NASA’s Mars Orbiter’s HiRISE camera. Those images are still under wraps due to the ongoing government shutdown.