3I/Atlas Update

 

The above illustration is the most recent image we have of "All Please" or 3I/Atlas. It was taken just a few hours before I published this article by the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile. This interstellar object is rocketing across the solar system at thirty-eight miles per second relative to the sun, one of the fastest things we've ever seen. That means its transit will be very quick, in fact by March next year it will already be beyond the distance it already is on its exit course. On its current trajectory 3I/Atlas will unfortunately come nowhere near the earth; its projected track runs across the far side of the inner planetary orbits. Astronomers are all satisfied that this is a comet, albeit a very strange one. Not only has it started outgassing earlier than one would expect if it were a conventional comet, but its coma appears devoid of certain substances one normally sees in a solar-bound comet; most notably carbon dioxide, methane, ethane, nitrogen and water. The astronomers are describing this coma as "dust". The mechanism by which this dusty coma is forming is not currently understood and Avi Loeb is even asking if it is a coma at all. He thinks it might be a photographic effect of the telescope or even a crust on the object that provides thermal insulation. Could such a crust form naturally? It is very bright, and Avi even thinks it might be generating its own light. How can it do that? Avi goes on to add on his blog: "The fundamental question is whether 3I/ATLAS is a comet with a kilometre-scale nucleus or a solid object that is twenty kilometres in diameter which shows very limited evaporation?" Source: https://avi-loeb.medium.com/is-3i-atlas-a-comet-or-something-else-7c37f8e095bd. According to Oxford astronomer Matthew Hopkins, All Please is not coming from the local standard of rest like 'Oumuamua did. It has flown all the way from the core of the Milky Way and is probably very old, maybe predating the solar system itself. Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx23g5jpj9go. When All Please reaches its perigee it will be lost in the sun's glare, but astronomers hope to get images from the James Webb Space Telescope or even repurpose the Mars Express or Tianwen 1 which are currently orbiting Mars. As I've described previously, the object is going to make a very close approach to the red planet. Only time will tell exactly what 3I/Atlas is, but I sense an emotional longing within academia, with the exception of Avi Loeb, to assume this is a natural heavenly body. It might turn out not to be.
See here for background: https://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2025/07/interstellar-object-portal.html.