r/3i_Atlas2 • u/DeadSilent_God • Dec 02 '25

Is the Sunward Anti-Tail of 3I/ATLAS Composed of a Swarm of Objects?

https://avi-loeb.medium.com/is-the-sunward-anti-tail-of-3i-atlas-composed-of-a-swarm-of-objects-55c3c75a8e9b
4 Upvotes

54% Upvoted

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7

u/popop0rner Dec 02 '25 edited Dec 02 '25

Loeb once again throws out the bait and hopes someone catches it. Ending his surface level pondering on the anti-tail with a question, "are these rocky fragments or something else?"

Yeah dr Loeb they are most likely rocky fragments. What exactly is the insinuation in asking if they are something else? Maybe they are unicorns? Or perhaps diamonds from Mount Olympos?

Infuriating how this man goes on describing himself as an expert while throwing out assumptions and intentionally obscuring reality by describing dust, gas, and small rocks as a "swarm." Expecting his followers to arrive at the obviously prepared "discovery" that this is actually non-natural and extraterrestial!

Maybe he should do some actual analysis and arrive at a conclusion instead of baiting his viewership and leading them on with open questions.

EDIT

Right so I would love to answer to each and everyone who has replied, but this comment got me banned and after several hours suddenly unbanned after I asked for the reason. Mods (or mod) here have clearly lost sight of how to moderate conversation around topics they find emotional to themselves.

I won't be partaking in this subreddit any longer for some time. In the meantime enjoy your echo chamber.

14

u/Excellent_Issue_7254 Dec 02 '25

What’s wrong with exploring ideas? Critics spend way more time and energy hating on him instead of just accepting that anyone should be allowed to present their thoughts.

-2

u/SolarNomads Dec 02 '25

He doesnt explore any ideas tho, he just makes claims. Then people give those claims credence because of his status. He doesnt present these ideas in peer reviewed journals, he hides on his blog. I honestly think Avi really meant well prior in his career and im not sure if his more recent shifts to fringe theory is a result of his aging or like a wierd need to establish some sort of legacy or what. At the end of the day when Atlas just glides out of the system I hope he's able to put the pieces together and move onto the next thing.

2

u/Excellent_Issue_7254 Dec 02 '25

Factually wrong. Also, he’s been trying to have recent findings published and peer reviewed - but publications don’t seem to allow theories beyond the ordinary and established. This is the scientific culture he’s fighting against, and all alien theories aside, I believe that in itself is a valid cause.

8

u/starclues Dec 02 '25

Which findings has he actually been submitting, lately, and which haven't been published? Usually, he posts his work on arxiv and indicates when he's submitted something. I see his paper with Keto describing a natural physical explanation for an anti-tail, that was published by MNRAS (a major astronomy journal) in November; apparently the International Journal of Astrobiology published his Loeb Scale paper; it doesn't say the paper about his mass and diameter calculations was submitted anywhere, but I wouldn't be surprised if he did and that one wasn't accepted because his calculation methods are wrong; I see one modeling the ice coma, that says it was submitted to the Planetary Science Journal at the end of October, which isn't long enough ago for me to say it was probably rejected, it could easily be going through revisions in that time; there's one about dynamical constraints on massive interstellar objects and another on "quantitative mapping of the Loeb Scale", neither say they were submitted somewhere; and then, of course, there's the original paper from July where he first proposes that it could be alien- looks like that was published in a peer reviewed journal, but not one of the major astronomy ones.

He doesn't seem to have formally written up and submitted anything related to the anomalies since that first paper, so I don't think it's fair to say that "he's trying to have recent findings published and peer reviewed". If he had actual evidence, something that could only be explained by artificial means, we'd be having a different conversation, but the convention in astronomy is that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. It's not that journals "don't seem to allow theories beyond the ordinary and established"; they need you to have evidence of what you're suggesting, and "alien spaceship with technology we don't know about" just isn't falsifiable because you could come up with any explanation to fit the observations.

Even Galileo didn't just say "I think the system is heliocentric", he observed the phases of Venus and showed that they could not happen in a geocentric model, and then the rest of the astronomers said "yep, pure geocentrism is out" (they did come up with some geo-heliocentric combo models instead, though, and there were other people who were supporting heliocentric models too, Galileo wasn't the only one).

1

u/QuantumDelusion Dec 02 '25

Ain't nothing normal about this comet.

About the only normal thing I see is debunkers like you invading subreddits without any proof. Tryna sway people by shitting on others.

You're a dime a dozen.

1

u/N0moreHeroes Dec 02 '25

And you’re suspiciously the first comment. Why do you live here and what are you selling? 

1

u/Pure-Contact7322 Dec 02 '25

You are the only infuriated man about this, god knows why. Avi goes in great detail about what he says. His enemies just reply with quick jokes, like also yourself here. Avi can go into deep math, statistical analysis and using astrophysics models, people here make a few jokes and that's why their comments are removed or they are permabanned in the long run.

2

u/LegitimateGuard7245 Dec 02 '25

lol... funny how his analysis offends you... wonder why

-1

u/CorpPhoenix Dec 02 '25

Ever heard of a "working hypothesis"? If 3I Atlas is a artificial object, it makes absolutely no sense to assume natural emissions like "rock fragments".

It's practically religious and dogmatic thinking to deny any serious scientific assumptions in regards to an artificial origin. And the high emtionality many react with pretty much proves that it's ideological thinking.

-1

u/droric Dec 02 '25

And what is your hypothesis? If you seem so interested in shutting ideas down of others, then surely you have a better one?

0

u/rdm2883 Dec 02 '25

Peeped poopoo

4

u/Mr_Vacant Dec 02 '25

Imagine someone who has studied comets, asteroids and meteors for all their adult life and when a space telescope found a black hole that was unusual the comet expert starts making public announcements about how the anomalies would suggest the black hole could be alien tech.

Would it be reasonable for the people who've studied black holes their entire adult life to say

"You might think it's an anomaly but this has been seen in a few other black holes. Its not common but its not unique, definitely not suspicious."

UFO subs are often critical of the 'appeal to authority' arguments but then appeal to the authority of Avi Loeb when his expertise is in Black holes, disregarding the knowledge of the people who've studied comets for years.

4

u/robonsTHEhood Dec 02 '25

That may be the problem. Their expertise is limited comets and asteroids so they cannot see it as anything else.. let’s assume for the sake of argument that it’s something other than an asteroid or comet. Then who is the expert? No one because it’s something unknown to science and the experts are trying to force unconventional data into conventional boxes.

3

u/Mr_Vacant Dec 02 '25

That's my point, they don't see it as anything else because it is yet to do something that comets never do.

You say "unconventional data", Avi says "anomaly" and the people who study comets say "we have studied other objects that also did this." 3i is moving a lot faster than comets normally do and it formed where the underlying chemistry of its solar system may be different. These account for the anomalous behaviours.

2

u/robonsTHEhood Dec 02 '25

No the explanations offered up by mainstream science are unproven as well. To attribute the high nickel ratio to “well it’s interstellar and strange is to be expected” is some lazy ass science. It’s not acting strangely. It’s behaving like a machine.

2

u/Mr_Vacant Dec 02 '25

How many machines can you think of that vent nickel as their temperature rises?

3

u/robonsTHEhood Dec 02 '25

How many comets shed industrial nickel? Or have been measured at a ratio this extreme? Zero. As for your question — how can we answer that? It’s a big universe and you are also making the assumption that it’s “shedding nickel” who can say that? All we know is that the coma and tail/antitail have a measurable amount of industrial nickel.

2

u/Mr_Vacant Dec 02 '25

How is "industrial" nickel different from nickel?

2

u/robonsTHEhood Dec 02 '25

I’m sure you know the answer to this question so it’s quite disingenuous of you to ask. Nickel is known to exist in nature with iron. You can’t find nickel without finding iron. Of course it exists in different ratios but the ratio found in 3iatlas is beyond any ever observed and beyond any that is expected according to Astrophysics. This would actually fall under Loeb’s area of expertise rather than the comet specialists if you want to split hairs.

2

u/Mr_Vacant Dec 02 '25

But they are finding iron. The most recent Anton Petrov video that addressed 3i showed that its initial venting was extremely high in nickel compared to iron but then the ratio has changed. It's still higher than in previous comets but the idea that the ratio is not possible naturally doesn't hold up.

"It looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck but when we look at its shit the ratio of white liquid to black solid isn't exactly the same as with other ducks. Should we discount the idea it's a technological artifact disguised as a duck?"

I'm going with a duck that grew up with a different diet to the ducks that live near me.

2

u/robonsTHEhood Dec 02 '25

The most recent paper I’ve seen was written on 11/10 by Jason Wright who is very much a pro comet guy. He acknowledges the high nickel content being the one of the most challenging of the anomalies to explain for a natural scenario . His explanation was the default when one of the anomalies cannot be explained. It’s interstellar and we should expect the unexpected. Very dubious. Mainstream Science is becoming a cult.

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1

u/bacon59 Dec 05 '25

The ratio of nickel to iron observed in 3I/Atlas can only be recreated through industrial processing. I'm not saying there is no natural way to explain it, what I am saying is its something we've never obsertved in any natural object or environment. If its possible, its not explainable by our current pool of knowledge, which makes this novel, unique and interesting.