By Samuel Lopez | USA Herald
Exclusive forensic image analysis
A newly processed image of interstellar object 3I/ATLAS, captured by the Hubble Space Telescope on January 22, 2026, reveals a level of internal structure and geometric regularity that sharply challenges prevailing explanations describing the object as an ordinary cometary body.
The image, derived from NASA/ESA/STScI data and independently processed by image analyst Toni Scarmato, exposes persistent, non-random features that remain visible after advanced rotational-gradient processing—an analytical method designed specifically to eliminate smooth, symmetrical coma glow and isolate genuine structural anomalies.
What remains is difficult to dismiss.
A Forensic, Not Aesthetic, Examination
USA Herald conducted a forensic-style review of the image using analytical principles commonly applied in legal and scientific evidence evaluation. The analysis focuses not on how the object appears, but on what features persist after noise, symmetry, and optical bias are removed.
This distinction is critical.
Rotational gradient (Larson–Sekanina–style) processing does not add structure. It removes it. Any coherent geometry that survives the process must originate in the object itself.
A Persistent Anti-tail With Active Characteristics
One of the most striking features visible in the processed image is a pronounced anti-tail—a rare phenomenon in which dust appears to extend sunward rather than away from the Sun.
Anti-tails are known to occur under precise viewing geometries, but they are typically:
