A new look at December imagery suggests we are not seeing a solid surface at all—but a finely balanced cloud of dust that obscures whatever lies beneath.
[USA HERALD] – The more closely astronomers examine 3I/ATLAS, the clearer it becomes that this interstellar visitor is not behaving like a typical comet. Newly scrutinized images from December—shown here in both lightly stretched and aggressively processed forms—reveal a compact brightness core wrapped in a dense, asymmetric dust environment. What telescopes are detecting is not a clean nucleus with a straightforward tail, but a luminous envelope whose structure appears to control what we can and cannot see.
At the heart of the mystery is optical depth. Analysis of the brightness gradients indicates that the dust immediately surrounding 3I/ATLAS is near the threshold where it transitions from transparent to opaque. In practical terms, sunlight penetrating this region is scattered so efficiently that only a fraction reaches the interior. The result is a veil: thick enough to hide a solid surface, yet thin enough to allow continued activity.
