3I/ATLAS, the (possibly) normal comet that could also (maybe) be aliens from deep space, is pumping out gas and dust as it melts in the sunlight. It’s also growing a tail that points away from the Sun as it moves through our solar system.
You don’t have to know a whole lot about how comets work to understand that that’s weird, which is just par for the course for 3I/ATLAS. Everything it does is odd, which is why there are wild theories about its potential alien origins.
Recently, astronomers using Hawaii’s Keck II telescope caught 3I/ATLAS billowing out cyanide and nickel gas, and it was firing off toward the sun. This so-called “anti-tail” has led some experts, like Harvard’s Avi Loeb—best known of late as the guy who’s constantly suggesting that 3I/ATLAS is some ancient alien artifact—to wonder aloud about what the heck is going on here.
You get your classic comet tail when dust gets burned off the icy rock by solar radiation, and it gets dragged behind the comet as it soars through space. But 3I/ATLAS isn’t doing that.
3I/Atlas, the Weirdo-Comet, Has a Tail Pointing Toward the Sun Instead of Away From It
A theory posited by University of California, Los Angeles, planetary astronomer Michael Busch attempts to ground all of this in a non-fantastical reality. The theory suggests that a fast-spinning, probably unstable nucleus is ejecting the big, heavy dust grains. This is resulting in a bizarre, nontraditional comet tail.
These particles don’t respond to sunlight the way regular dust particles would, so instead, these chunks move along the comet’s orbit in different directions. Pair that with our perspective of it all back here on Earth, and it creates the illusion of the tail sprouting toward the sun.
Anti-tales are nothing new, but this one is one of the more dramatic ever observed. Loeb, really wanting a whole mysterious and possibly alien aspect of it to take hold, thinks scientists are being too casual about all this.
Still, for now, most researchers other than him are treating this with an abundance of caution, careful not to overreact to something that could ultimately end up being a weird ass but yet still regular old comet.
3I/ATLAS will swing past Jupiter soon, giving NASA’s Juno and ESA’s Juice satellites a chance to sneak a peek before the comet vanishes forever.
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