3I Atlas is Changing, Even Though It Shouldn’t! NEW HUBBLE PHOTOS!
- Wobbling Jets of 3I/ATLAS Based on New Hubble Telescope Images from December 12 and 27, 2025
by Avi Loeb
New images of the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS, taken through 170 second exposures with the WFC3 UVIS (F350LP) camera of the Hubble Space Telescope at a central wavelength of 0.5851 micron on December 12 and 27, 2025, were released here. They reveal a double-jet structure. The more prominent jet is an anti-tail directed towards the Sun.
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A sunward jet which is 10 times longer than it is wide was already captured in the Hubble image taken on July 21, 2025 (as reported here and analyzed here). Its 7-degree wobble around the rotation axis of 3I/ATLAS (as reported here) implied that it originated near the Sun-facing pole long before perihelion. The gravitational deflection of 3I/ATLAS by the Sun during perihelion on October 29, 2025, was only by 16 degrees, as I calculated here. If the rotation axis did not change orientation between July and December 2025, the original Sun-facing pole is now on the nightside of 3I/ATLAS — opposite to the direction of the Sun. It points in the same direction as the weaker jet in the new Hubble images from December 12 and 27, 2025, and is accompanied by a stronger sunward jet from the opposite side of 3I/ATLAS on its way out of the solar system.
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