Shocking new images of the interstellar visitor known as 3I/ATLAS have left astronomers — and independent researchers — stunned. In the weeks leading up to its closest approach to Earth, the mysterious object has shrunk by nearly 13 percent and, even more bizarrely, appears to have rotated to directly face our planet.
According to NASA’s own data, the object began shedding material after its pass around the Sun last month — but the sudden change in orientation has ignited speculation that something — or someone — is controlling it.
Harvard Professor Avi Loeb, who has been analyzing the object since the summer, noted that this sudden shrinkage was directly tied to the noticeable change in the interstellar object’s course as it moved closer to the sun.
‘For a typical comet, this should have resulted in a massive coma with dust and gas that would have been pushed by the solar radiation pressure and the solar wind to the shape of a typical cometary tail pointing away from the sun,’ he said in a blog post.
‘No such tail is visible in the new images from November 5, 2025.’
3I/ATLAS will make its closest approach to our planet on December 19, just six weeks from now.
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| An image of interstellar object 3I/ATLAS taken on November 5 revealed no obvious cometary tail, which should have formed after passing the sun |
Daily Mail report: Loeb has previously warned that contact with 3I/ATLAS has the makings of a ‘black swan event,’ meaning this massive space object could be an alien mothership trying to disguise itself as a space rock for an unknown purpose.
However, NASA and hundreds of researchers are claiming 3I/ATLAS is nothing more than a comet from outside of our Solar System.
With no such tail forming around 3I/ATLAS, Loeb maintains that the odds of this strange visitor being an artificial craft of extraterrestrial origin are growing every single day.
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| Clues have continued to pile up that suggest this object from outside the solar system is not a natural phenomenon. This includes displaying a strange ‘anti-tail’ which pointed towards the sun as it made its closest approach to the star last month |
The shedding of material happened when a ground-based telescope in Chile identified a mysterious increase in speed.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) said the mysterious shift by 3I/ATLAS could not be explained by the sun’s extreme gravity pulling on the alleged comet.
Instead, 3I/ATLAS clearly pulled away from the sun and also turned to its side, which Loeb suggested was a sign of a rocket engine adjusting the craft’s course.
For a normal comet to complete this shocking maneuver naturally, 3I/ATLAS would have had to lose more than 13 percent of its mass, creating giant jets of gas pouring out of the space rock.
These jets of gas would have had the same effect as a rocket engine, pushing the comet away from the sun despite the massive star’s gravitational pull on everything in the solar system.
However, this kind of outpouring of gas leaves a trail of evidence, clear signs that the comet melted and released roughly five billion tons of gas and dust into space.
NASA’s latest images, released on November 5, show no signs that 3I/ATLAS has done any of this, despite shrinking by about 13 percent and pulling away from the sun.
Moreover, Loeb revealed that the unidentified object hasn’t changed much at all compared to a photo taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in July.
The physicist and head of the Galileo Project, a scientific research group looking for signs of extraterrestrial life, has argued that 3I/ATLAS has shown at least 10 signs it’s an artificially constructed vessel that’s now heading toward Earth.
However, clues have continued to pile up that suggest this object from outside the solar system is not a natural phenomenon.
This includes displaying a strange ‘anti-tail’ which pointed towards the sun as it made its closest approach to the star last month.
A normal comet’s tail points away from the sun as ice and rock break away and trail behind the comet as it moves through space.
3I/ATLAS has also repeatedly changed color during its journey through the solar system, including turning blue as it reached the sun, something a typical comet never does.
Normal comets turn red as their cold surfaces absorb blue light and bounce back mostly red light, just like a cold piece of metal glows red when you start heating it.
While one strange oddity being seen in a comet could be explained by science, Loeb noted that the odds of 3I/ATLAS displaying 10 strange anomalies at the same time are astronomical and point to the object being created by a distant intelligence.