[USA HERALD] – This latest analysis is best understood not as a reclassification of 3I/ATLAS, but as a snapshot of Avi Loeb’s current scientific position regarding where the object stands on the Loeb Classification Scale.
Despite now identifying 18 separate anomalies, including the newly confirmed system of three symmetric mini-jets plus a dominant fourth jet, Loeb has not elevated 3I/ATLAS to a Level 5 designation. That restraint is deliberate and central to how the scale is meant to function.
In simple terms, Level 4 objects exhibit multiple features that are difficult to explain with known natural processes, but each anomaly still has at least one plausible physical explanation, even if those explanations are strained, incomplete, or statistically unlikely. That is where 3I/ATLAS currently remains.
A Level 5 classification, by contrast, requires something more decisive:
a feature or behavior that cannot be reasonably reconciled with any known natural mechanism without invoking speculative physics or stacking improbable assumptions on top of one another.
For 3I/ATLAS to move into that highest category, scientists would need evidence such as:
