Interstellar Visitor 3I/ATLAS: X-Shaped Jets Challenge Natural Origin Theories

The ongoing study of the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS, the third confirmed visitor from another star system following 1I/'Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov, continues to fuel intense scientific discussion. A key observation made on November 20, 2025, by a team of astronomers including Michael Jäger, G. Rehmann, and E. Prosperi, revealed a highly unusual structure. This image captured two narrow, straight jets positioned precisely perpendicular to each other, as well as to the object’s known tail and anti-tail, creating a distinct X-shaped pattern.

These jets, extending approximately one million kilometers, exhibit kinematics that seriously strain conventional models of cometary physics. Standard expectations suggest that rotation, which occurs with a period of 16.16 hours for this object, should produce spiral or wave-like ejection patterns, not sharp, orthogonal plumes. This unexpected geometry is what has many researchers scratching their heads.

3I/ATLAS was initially spotted on July 1, 2025, utilizing the ATLAS telescope in Chile. At the time the anomalous jets were documented, the object was situated 326 million kilometers away from Earth. Professor Avi Loeb of Harvard University, after analyzing the data, calculated that explaining the trajectory of these ejections—assuming they were separated near the perihelion passage on October 29, 2025—would require an ejection velocity approaching 500 meters per second. Loeb contends that the Sun’s tidal forces alone are insufficient to impart such a significant impulse, leading him to suggest the possibility of a chemical mechanism consistent with a technological artifact.

While this hypothesis is not widely accepted by the broader scientific community, including the official stance held by NASA, it underscores the truly exceptional nature of 3I/ATLAS. The object’s chemical makeup further deepens the mystery surrounding its nature. Data gathered by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in August 2025 indicated an unusually high ratio of carbon monoxide (CO) relative to water. Specifically, this ratio was eight times greater than what is typically observed in Solar System comets.

Some researchers theorize this chemical imbalance could be the result of billions of years of exposure to galactic cosmic rays during the object's long journey through interstellar space, potentially leading to the formation of a dense, organic crust on its surface. Earlier evidence hinting at this atypical behavior surfaced when the HiRISE camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) detected an “X”-shaped glow on October 3, 2025, as the object passed Mars at a relatively close distance of about 29 million kilometers.

Despite these compelling anomalies, NASA representatives, including Nick Fox and Amit Kshatriya, maintain that 3I/ATLAS should be classified as a comet. They attribute the deviations to the object’s formation environment outside the confines of our Solar System. The body boasts the most eccentric orbit of any known interstellar object, registering an eccentricity of 6.137. Scientists anticipate a critical opportunity for further analysis when the object makes its closest approach to Earth on December 19, 2025, at a distance of roughly 270 million kilometers.

While the majority of astronomers view 3I/ATLAS as a healthy comet showing no signs of disintegration, the technological origin hypothesis remains a topic of intense debate, particularly given the non-gravitational acceleration NASA has already registered. Upcoming observations, scheduled under the International Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN) campaign from November 27, 2025, through January 27, 2026, will be absolutely vital in resolving this scientific paradox before 3I/ATLAS departs the Solar System in the early 2030s.