Image of 3I/ATLAS from the SPHEREx observation of the object , the coma from the object extends out to at least 216,000 miles and as we already know contains anomalies compared to regular comets.
![[Image: spherex-3i.jpg]](https://www.sciencealert.com/images/2025/09/spherex-3i.jpg)
One mans "outgassing" could be another mans propulsion system and as we don't have electromagnetic shield technology how do we know what they look like or how far their reach may extend ... just sayin.
Quote:It's for this reason that we now know the first known glimpse of 3I/ATLAS took place back in May, nearly two full months before the official discovery. The comet was moving a lot faster than the targets TESS is designed to study, so researchers had to use some image-stacking techniques to reveal it.
This is where it gets interesting. The TESS data suggest that the comet was already active at that time, at a distance of around 6 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun – out past the orbit of Jupiter. That's a much greater distance than expected: most comets begin showing activity no closer than 5 AU from the Sun.
https://www.sciencealert.com/4-powerful-...is-bizarre
One mans "outgassing" could be another mans propulsion system and as we don't have electromagnetic shield technology how do we know what they look like or how far their reach may extend ... just sayin.