‘As NASA withholds critical imagery and government silence deepens, one explanation for the object’s anomalous anti-tail grows more difficult to ignore’
- What we’re seeing now challenges everything we know about natural cometary physics.
- The data suggests possibilities that extend beyond conventional explanations.
- This moment demands transparency from agencies that have chosen silence instead.
By Samuel Lopez | USA Herald
SUNNYVALE, CA – On November 15, 2025, astronomer Teerasak Thaluang captured something that continues to confound the scientific community: a new image of interstellar object 3I/ATLAS displaying a prominent anti-tail alongside traditional cometary tails.
The observation, made using a 0.26-meter telescope in Thailand, is the latest in a growing collection of data that paints a picture of an object behaving unlike any natural comet we have documented. While multiple theories attempt to explain the phenomenon, one stands out for its audacity and its implications: Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb’s suggestion that the anti-tail could be the result of technological thrusters.
A comet anti-tail is one of the strangest and most counterintuitive features a comet can display — a tail that appears to point toward the Sun, rather than away from it, defying the standard physics of solar radiation pressure that pushes typical cometary dust outward into space.
For natural comets, this effect is rare and poorly understood. The leading conventional explanation involves the release of unusually large dust particles, roughly 100 micrometers in radius, as proposed by David Jewitt and his collaborators.
These giant particles are a million times more massive than the typical micrometer-scale dust that scatters sunlight effectively in ordinary comets. Because their surface area-to-mass ratio is 100 times smaller, they are not pushed away from the Sun as efficiently by radiation pressure.
But there’s a catch: to produce the same level of brightness observed in 3I/ATLAS, the object would need to expel 100 times more mass in these large particles than a typical comet sheds in smaller dust. That’s an enormous energy expenditure for a body already suspected of interstellar origins.
Another natural explanation involves ice fragments rather than refractory dust. In this scenario, proposed by Loeb and Eric Keto, chunks of ice scatter sunlight but evaporate before they have the chance to be pushed outward into a traditional tail. The ice theory accounts for the visual signature without requiring the extreme mass loss of the giant dust model, but it introduces its own questions about the object’s composition and thermal behavior as it approaches the Sun.
Then there is the third possibility, the one that refuses to fade into the background no matter how speculative it may seem. Loeb has suggested that the anti-tail could be produced by technological thrusters—engineered jets that accelerate 3I/ATLAS away from the Sun through tightly collimated streams of material traveling at velocities far exceeding natural outgassing.
Natural comets release gas and dust at speeds of up to a few hundred meters per second. Artificial propulsion systems, by contrast, would produce jets moving at several kilometers per second or faster. These high-speed jets could penetrate a million kilometers through the solar wind without dissipating, creating the directional signature we observe as an anti-tail. Loeb has emphasized that upcoming spectroscopic observations will allow scientists to measure the outflow speed of the material in 3I/ATLAS’s anti-tail, potentially distinguishing between natural and artificial origins.
The physics alone would be enough to make 3I/ATLAS a landmark case in astrophysics. But the story has taken on an entirely different dimension due to the actions—or inactions—of the United States government. NASA is still withholding images of 3I/ATLAS that were captured during the early days of a government shutdown. These images, taken at a critical phase of the object’s approach, remain classified or unreleased despite their potential scientific value.
Representative Anna Paulina Luna has sent a letter to acting NASA administrator, Sean Duffy demanding the release of this data. Duffy has not responded. President Donald Trump, who has remained vocal on a wide range of issues, has been entirely silent on this matter.
Whether or not the administration believes extraterrestrial technology is involved, the subject is of deep public and scientific interest, and the refusal to release government-held imagery undermines both transparency and the integrity of the scientific process.
The object is currently on a trajectory that will bring it to its closest approach to Earth on December 19, 2025. Between now and then, observatories around the world will continue to gather photometric, spectroscopic, and imaging data. Each new observation refines our understanding of the object’s behavior, its composition, its velocity profile, and the nature of its tails.
If the anti-tail is indeed the result of technological propulsion, the implications would be profound—not just for astrophysics, but for humanity’s understanding of its place in the cosmos. If it is natural, then 3I/ATLAS represents a new class of interstellar object with properties we have never encountered before. Either outcome demands serious scientific attention and public access to the data being collected.
This is not the first time Loeb has proposed that an interstellar object might be artificial. His work on ‘Oumuamua, the first confirmed interstellar visitor to our solar system in 2017, sparked global debate when he suggested it could be a light sail or probe. That hypothesis remains contentious, but it opened the door to a broader conversation about what we should expect from objects originating beyond our star system.
3I/ATLAS, with its persistent anti-tail and unusual brightness variations, adds another chapter to that conversation. The flood of data expected in the coming weeks will provide the clarity needed to resolve these questions, but only if that data is made available to the scientific community and the public.
What remains troubling is the government’s posture. Transparency in science is not optional. When federal agencies withhold observational data on an object of this significance, they undermine public trust and obstruct the collaborative process that drives discovery.
Whether the explanation for 3I/ATLAS is technological, geological, or something we have not yet imagined, the American people deserve to see the evidence. The silence from NASA, from Secretary Duffy, and from President Trump is unacceptable. The images exist. The data exists. The time for secrecy has passed.
We are watching an object that does not behave like the comets we know, displaying features that challenge our models and provoke our imaginations. We are also watching our government choose opacity over accountability. One of these problems can be solved by science. The other requires leadership.
OFFICIAL STATEMENT:
Avi Loeb, via Medium (November 15, 2025):
“Finally, there is the more speculative possibility that the anti-tail is a result of technological thrusters which accelerate 3I/ATLAS away from the Sun through tightly collimated jets that penetrate a million kilometers through the Solar wind because of their high speed. Future spectroscopic data will be able to calibrate the outflow speed and distinguish between natural outgassing which results in a characteristic speed of up to a few hundred meters per second and artificial jets which produce speeds above a few kilometers per second.”
Developments are ongoing. Observatories worldwide continue to monitor 3I/ATLAS as it approaches Earth, with peak observation opportunities expected through December 19, 2025. Follow USA HERALD for all the latest developments.
