An Early Image of 3I/ATLAS That Scientists Can’t Easily Explain

A Coma That Didn’t Behave

Even early on, 3I/ATLAS showed signs that it was not shedding material in the chaotic, isotropic way most icy bodies do when first heated by the Sun. The brightness here is sharply concentrated, with a steep gradient on one side and a sudden falloff on the other. That asymmetry is now a recurring theme.

More recent images—especially processed observations revealing structured jets and rotating emission features—confirm that this object has preferred directions of activity. What looked like a washed-out blob months ago now aligns eerily well with today’s sharply resolved, elongated radio and optical profiles.

In other words, this wasn’t an immature view of a comet still “waking up.” It was an early glimpse of an object with built-in geometry.

The Offset Bright Spot That Still Haunts Researchers

One of the most curious features in this image is the compact bright point sitting near the edge of the larger glow. At the time, it could have been written off as a background star or processing artifact. But follow-up astrometry and later imaging strongly suggest that this brightness was co-moving with 3I/ATLAS.