![\"\"](\"https:\/\/miro.medium.com\/v2\/resize:fit:640\/format:webp\/1*IMuuUXSQWWZQCPVCga3Zvw.png)
<\/picture><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/picture><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/miro.medium.com\/v2\/resize:fit:640\/format:webp\/1*0Vgyo0dtP0QoA0348WN3Og.png)
<\/picture><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/miro.medium.com\/v2\/resize:fit:640\/format:webp\/1*wY3tXWhAF2ffXDHuQgmWWQ.png)
<\/picture><\/div>\n<\/div>Breaking News:\u00a0<\/strong>The interstellar object\u00a03I\/ATLAS<\/a>\u00a0did not break up near the Sun.<\/p>\n Images taken of 3I\/ATLAS on November 11, 2025 show a single body, with no evidence for breakup following the perihelion passage two weeks earlier. The images, reported\u00a0here,<\/a>\u00a0were taken by David Jewitt and Jane Luu on the\u00a0Nordic Optical Telescope<\/em>\u00a0with a primary mirror of 2.56-meter diameter, located at La Palma in the Canary Islands.<\/p>\n The prominent elongation in the glow surrounding 3I\/ATLAS projects to a position angle of 106 (+\/-10) degrees. This is close to the projected sunward direction of 115 degrees. It resembles the image obtained by the\u00a0Hubble Space Telescope<\/em>\u00a0on July 21, 2025, which showed an anti-tail pointing towards the Sun (as reported\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0and analyzed\u00a0here<\/a>). The new image also shows a weaker asymmetry at a position angle of 301 (+\/-1) degrees, which is close to the projected anti-solar direction of 295 degrees.<\/p>\n In units of the Earth-Sun separation (astronomical units=au), the distances of 3I\/ATLAS from the Sun and Earth were 1.43 au and 2.16 au, respectively. The imaged region is approximately half a million kilometers wide.<\/p>\n The long-range jet structures evident in recent wide-field pictures taken in recent days (see\u00a0<\/mark>here<\/a><\/mark>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/mark>here<\/a><\/mark>) are not evident in this data, probably because it was taken through an R-band filter that excluded most of the gaseous emission lines.<\/mark><\/p>\n Given the large-scale jets reported recently, the fact that 3I\/ATLAS remains a single body is surprising for a natural comet. In particular, the large-scale image of 3I\/ATLAS reported\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0on November 9, 2025 shows jets reaching out to ~1 million kilometers towards the Sun and ~3 million kilometers in the opposite direction, as discussed\u00a0here<\/a>.\u00a0For a natural comet, the outflow velocity of the jets is expected to be 0.4 kilometers per second,<\/mark>\u00a0of order the sound speed of gas at the distance of 3I\/ATLAS from the Sun. At that speed, the jets must have persisted over a timescale of 1\u20133 months.<\/p>\n Given that the jets towards the Sun were stopped by the solar wind at a distance of a million kilometers, I calculated\u00a0<\/mark>here<\/a><\/mark>\u00a0that their mass density is a few million proton masses per cubic centimeter at a distance of a million kilometers from 3I\/ATLAS. The product of this mass density and the outflow speed, implies a mass flux of 5 billion tons per month per area of a million-kilometer on a side.<\/mark><\/p>\n The sublimation of carbon dioxide (CO2) ice requires an energy of 600 Joules per gram. In order to sublimate ~5 billion tons of CO2 over the perihelion passage period of a month, 3I\/ATLAS must have received at least\u00a03×10^{18}<\/em>\u00a0Joules. At its perihelion distance, the Sun provided 700 Joules per square meter per second, requiring an absorbing area larger than 1,600 square kilometers. This is the area of a sphere with a diameter of 23 kilometers, 4 times larger than the maximum diameter of 5.6 kilometers inferred for 3I\/ATLAS from the imaging data of the Hubble Space telescope reported\u00a0here<\/a>. The required diameter is 51 kilometers for water ice. On natural cometary nuclei, the pockets of ice often cover a small fraction of the total surface, making the above numbers untenable for 3I\/ATLAS as a single body that maintained its integrity and did not break up into numerous fragments.<\/p>\n This raises a new anomaly of 3I\/ATLAS that must be explained by those who wish to shove the anomalies of 3I\/ATLAS under the carpet of traditional knowledge on solar system comets rather than consider alternatives. As Albert Einstein\u00a0said<\/a>: \u201cKnowledge is realizing that the street is one way; wisdom is looking in both directions anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n Technological thrusters which point their exhaust towards the Sun would accelerate away from the Sun. This post-perihelion maneuver might be employed by a spacecraft that aims to gain speed rather than slow down through the gravitational assist from the Sun.<\/mark><\/p>\n