Reading: Scientists left baffled after mysterious space object grows a tail towards the Sun

Scientists left baffled after mysterious space object grows a tail towards the Sun

Last updated: 2025/10/28 at 3:29 PM

News Room Published 28 October 2025

An interstellar visitor has been traveling through our solar system for a few months, and now researchers are baffled to find out it has grown a tail towards the sun. The more we learn about the visiting comet, the more questions emerge as 3I/ATLAS is showing traits that have never been displayed before in a comet. So, what is going on? (Picture: International Gemini Observatory)

In August, the Keck II telescope in Hawaii observed an object, when it seemed that the comet’s tail was pointing towards the Sun. The reason why this is weird is because comet tails are typically pushed away from the Sun by solar radiation and wind (Picture: Nasa)

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured an image of 3I/ATLAS on July 21. (Image credit: Image: NASA, ESA, David Jewitt (UCLA); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)) — Harvard professor Dr Avi Loeb weighed in. In a recent paper, a team of astronomers used the Keck data to confirm what Dr Loeb wrote in a blogpost – a ‘previously reported cyanide and nickel outgassing’ which are being emitted both in and against the direction of the Sun, and offering a ‘clear evidence for an anti-tail’ (Picture: NASA, ESA, David Jewitt (UCLA); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI))

Two-frame animation of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS (big gray fuzzy blob), seen moving across a field of stars in Hubble Space Telescope images taken on 21 July 2025 18:04 and 18:06 UTC. Each frame is a 25-second exposure taken with the WFC3 camera's F350LP filter. The stars appear trailed because the Hubble Space Telescope was following the comet's movement during the image exposure. Stray white pixels and spots that sporadically appear between frames are image artifacts caused by cosmic rays striking Hubble's camera during the exposure. The images are oriented North up, East left. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:3I-ATLAS_Hubble_2025-07-21_8UT.gif 14928987 First look at interstellar object hurtling towards solar system captured by Hubble Telescope — He added: ‘Most remarkably, the white light image of 3I/ATLAS does not show evidence for a familiar cometary tail, as expected for dust which scatters sunlight and is pushed away from the Sun by solar radiation pressure. The above data adds new anomalies to the classification of 3I/ATLAS as a familiar comet. The more data we get about 3I/ATLAS, the more it looks like an outlier’ (Picture: David Jewitt/NASA/ESA/Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI))

This image shows the observation of comet 3I/ATLAS when it was discovered on July 1, 2025. The NASA-funded ATLAS survey telescope in Chile first reported that the comet originated from interstellar space. ATLAS/University of Hawaii/NASA The NASA-funded ATLAS (Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System) survey telescope in Rio Hurtado, Chile, first reported observations to the Minor Planet Center of comet 3I/ATLAS on July 1, 2025. Since the first report, observations made before the discovery were gathered from the archives of three different ATLAS telescopes around the world and Caltechâ€™s Zwicky Transient Facility at the Palomar Observatory in San Diego County, California. These â€œpre-discoveryâ€ observations extend back to June 14. — However, there are a few reasons why this phenomenon may occur. One reason is that it could be an optical illusion. According to Earth’s position in space, a comet’s wide tail can fan out from behind it to make it look as if it has something extending from either side. Another possibility is that the larger grains of dust may be refusing to be pushed away by solar wind in the comet’s Sun-facing side, and its core could be spinning rapidly and releasing large pieces of debris in both directions. This would make it seem that there is a sunward anti-tail to its regular tail (Picture: ATLAS/University of Hawaii/NASA)

ESO???s Very Large Telescope (VLT) has obtained new images of 3I/ATLAS, an interstellar object discovered last week. Identified as a comet, 3I/ATLAS is only the third visitor from outside the Solar System ever found, after 1I/??Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov. Its highly eccentric hyperbolic orbit, unlike that of objects in the Solar System, gave away its interstellar origin.?? In this image, several VLT observations have been overlaid, showing the comet as a series of dots that move towards the right of the image over the course of about 13 minutes on the night of 3 July 2025. The data were obtained with the FORS2 instrument, and are available in the ESO archive.?? Links?? Timelapse of the observations Deep stacked image of all observations — University of California, Los Angeles, planetary astronomer Michael Busch said in a post on Bluesky: ‘With a rotating comet nucleus… ejecta from a spot can come off with heliocentric velocity that puts it either in front of or behind the nucleus. It does not matter which side it starts from. Small dust and ejected gas gets pushed out by radiation pressure and solar wind. But larger pieces of ejecta spread out along the orbit; both in front of and behind the nucleus’ (Picture: ESO/O. Hainaut)

This diagram provided by NASA/JPL-Caltech shows the trajectory of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS as it passes through the solar system. (NASA/JPL-Caltech via AP) — 3I/ATLAS was first spotted in our solar system in July, and since then has been providing astronomers with clues about life outside our solar system, as it was the third time ever an interstellar object has come into our solar system. However, researchers have had many theories about the comet, including it being an alien probe to spy on Earth, as well as a seed to create new planets. However, it’s expected to make a close approach to Jupiter next month, which will allow Nasa’s Juno spacecraft and the European Space Agency’s Juice spacecraft a chance to get a brief glimpse of it (Picture: AP)

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