Cosmic shock: scientists cannot explain a strange feature of an interstellar comet

Usually, antitails become visible when Earth passes through the plane of a comet’s orbit, but in the case of 3I/ATLAS, conventional theory cannot explain the observed phenomenon. This makes the object especially interesting to scientists and highlights its uniqueness among other comets.

As the comet moves away from the Sun, astronomers are obtaining increasingly clearer images that allow them to study its structure and the behavior of its dust streams. The rare antitail provides new data on the dynamics of interstellar objects within our Solar System and raises new mysteries for researchers to explore.

Earlier, astrophysicist Avi Loeb had mistaken the comet 3I/ATLAS for an alien spacecraft. However, scientists later determined that it is not a UFO but an interstellar object.