Overview
- Russia’s Space Research Institute reports that 3I/ATLAS continues to display a dust anti‑tail oriented opposite the main tail, a configuration typically seen only briefly in comets.
- The institute notes Earth has not yet crossed the object’s orbital plane and the anti‑tail has persisted beyond the usual one to two days, leaving its cause unresolved.
- Researchers suggest the anti‑tail may have been present since the object’s discovery in July, even before it passed behind the Sun.
- Improving imagery as the object moves away from the Sun is revealing previously hidden structural details that are now under close study.
- Separately, the object is projected to make a close approach to Jupiter on 16 March 2026, an encounter described as statistically unlikely, and it remains classified as an interstellar comet with a roughly 24‑kilometer coma and a modeled age exceeding 7.5 billion years.