3I/Atlas’ Twelfth Anomaly: Straight Jets Defy Physics and Rewrite the Rules

On November 9th, 2025, astronomers observing the interstellar comet 3I/Atlas captured an image that shook the foundations of comet science.

Against the black canvas of space, razor-sharp jets of dust and gas radiated outward from the comet’s nucleus, each maintaining a perfect, unbroken straightness for over a million kilometers.

This extraordinary observation was immediately puzzling because 3I/Atlas is known to spin once every 16.16 hours—a rotation speed that should cause any jets tied to its surface to sweep out arcs or spiral patterns as the comet turns.

According to well-established comet physics, gas and dust jets emanating from a rotating body cannot remain fixed in space.

As the nucleus spins, jets should curve, blur, or fan out, creating corkscrew-like shapes.

Yet, the jets captured by the Paranal Observatory defied this expectation, remaining razor straight and unwavering, even as dust particles traveled for nearly a month along them.

This anomaly, dubbed the “12th anomaly” by researchers, was not a subtle irregularity but a stark contradiction to every physical model of comet outgassing.

The discovery prompted urgent internal reviews to eliminate the possibility of image artifacts or data processing errors.

None were found—the jets were real.

The math behind the puzzle is straightforward yet confounding.

Dust particles escape the comet at approximately 400 meters per second, meaning it takes over 29 days for material to travel one million kilometers.

During that time, the nucleus completes about 43 full rotations.

Any surface-tied jet should thus trace a sweeping arc or spiral, not a straight line.

Several hypotheses have been proposed to explain this phenomenon, each facing significant challenges:

First, could the comet have slowed its spin dramatically, preventing jet smearing?

Observations from July and August showed no evidence of such deceleration; the 16.16-hour rotation period remained steady.

Second, sunlight-triggered jets—where gas puffs erupt only when sunlight hits specific surface features—were considered.

However, this would produce a series of discrete “puffs” spaced along the jet, not the continuous, unbroken streams observed.

Third, the fragment tail hypothesis suggests small pieces broke off near perihelion, each forming a straight tail.

Yet no breakup signatures or swarms of fragments have been detected, and light curves remain consistent with an intact nucleus.

Lastly, and most provocatively, some scientists have proposed the jets could be controlled thrusters—artificial mechanisms maintaining jet alignment despite the comet’s spin.

While this idea remains speculative and assigned a probability below 1%, it has not been dismissed outright given the failure of natural models to explain the data.

Adding to the mystery, 3I/Atlas’s orbit is nearly perfectly aligned with the ecliptic plane but retrograde, moving backward against the planetary flow—an extraordinarily rare trajectory for an interstellar visitor.

Its hyperbolic excess velocity of over 23 km/s places it among the fastest known interstellar objects.

Spectroscopic analyses deepen the puzzle.

Observations from the James Webb Space Telescope and the Very Large Telescope reveal the comet’s gas plume contains a nickel-to-iron ratio far exceeding solar system norms, a signature more reminiscent of engineered metal alloys than natural cometary material.

Water vapor, typically the dominant volatile in comet comae, is nearly absent—only about 4% of the coma’s mass—unlike other comets such as Borisov, which are water-rich.

Laboratory experiments attempting to replicate the straight jets by spinning ice and dust mixtures failed repeatedly.

Jets always twisted, blurred, or fanned out, never holding the razor-straight alignment seen in space.

Simulations tweaking surface roughness and outflow speeds also could not reproduce the phenomenon.

Magnetic field guidance was explored but found unsupported by observations near the comet.

The scientific community faces a crisis of explanation.

The “12th anomaly” forces every hypothesis to confront hard data that refuses to fit standard comet physics.

The anomaly arrived amid political and institutional tensions, with NASA imposing an embargo on high-resolution images during a government shutdown, fueling speculation and frustration among researchers and the public alike.

The comet’s passage near the position of the famous WOW signal has sparked public fascination and renewed interest in the possibility of extraterrestrial origins.

Researchers emphasize caution, but the mounting anomalies—unwavering jets, unusual composition, rare orbit—invite questions beyond conventional science.

3I/Atlas’s twelfth anomaly is a stark reminder that our understanding of the cosmos remains incomplete.

The universe guards its secrets jealously, revealing them only when we ask the right questions and challenge our assumptions.

As new data are awaited, the world watches, caught between wonder and doubt, on the edge of a scientific breakthrough—or a profound mystery that may redefine what we know about interstellar visitors.