New Image of 3I/ATLAS Reveals Activity And Geometry Not Previously Seen From This Perspective

The nucleus region appears compact and sharply bounded. Surrounding it is a dense inner halo, but the most consequential feature is the prominent sunward anti-tail jet, now isolated with extraordinary clarity. Unlike earlier broadband images where the anti-tail could be dismissed as a dust projection effect, the Larson–Sekanina filter removes isotropic coma glow and leaves behind only features that rotate or remain fixed relative to the nucleus. The jet survives this subtraction intact.

That matters.

It tells us the structure is not a passive dust smear caused by viewing angle alone. It is a persistent, axis-locked feature, maintaining alignment over the exposure window and resisting rotational blurring. In plain terms, the jet behaves as if it is anchored to a specific region or vector associated with the nucleus itself.

This perspective is new. Previous images showed sunward features, but not with this degree of contrast between ordered structure and background. Here, the jet appears narrow, elongated, and sharply defined against the filtered field. Its length, when scaled to the image’s two-arcsecond reference bar, corresponds to tens of thousands of kilometers—far exceeding the region where gas should survive if expelled at low velocity and opposed by the solar wind.