3I/ATLAS is NOT hotter than the Sun. It is not emitting like a 10,000 K blackbody. “turned blue” means it got better at reflecting blue light because there’s more gas now. Again, this is what ALL comets do. If you want to say “it’s just observations”, then kindly understand wtf you’re parroting.

The “anomalies” are not that unusual, certainly not enough to even wonder if it’s a comet. You should expand your reading list. Read @hectorsocas.bsky.social and @astrowright.bsky.social for starters.

Does it erupt often?

quote o the week

“He’s the Terminator, if the Terminator’s job was misconstruing ice and rocks in space to be aliens.”
— Steve Desch @deschscoveries.bsky.social

He will point to the posts where he said the overwhelming probability was it’s a natural comet, ignore the posts from the same week where he wrote there was a “60%” chance it was alien technology, never admit error, then repeat the whole process on the next cool astronomical thing. Science is fun. 😒

Mostly yes. Loeb made one argument about structures in the anti-tail and another about the tail. In both cases I think (he hasn’t given copious details) he’s looking at dust and calling it gas. Dust is accelerated closer in by gas jets, but in those large structures the dust is decoupled from gas.

3I/ATLAS has only done comety things for 140 days. I predict it’ll look like a comet on day 141. For 140 days this grifter has manufactured doubt. He’ll do the same tomorrow. He’s never going to stop. He’s the Terminator, if the Terminator’s job was misconstruing ice and rocks in space to be aliens.

This is not about its behavior near perihelion, which is when Loeb is suggesting it had thrusters. Worth noting this would be a natural explanation and not one made uniquely by Keto & Loeb.

“We could be seeing dust as expert comet observers say. Or maybe ice grains just like I said (forget I was just saying gas jets). Or, hey, did someone (me) suggest spaceship thrusters? Science is fun!”
Translation: it’s dust. From a comet. Which 3I is.
Science was fun before his manufactured doubt.

To clarify: Loeb hasn’t measured a thing. He sees what he wants to see in others’ work.
But yeah, what Loeb is referring to as millions of km long are sprays of dust, not jets of gas.

Since Day 1 (I’ve lost count, is it actually 139 days now?) 3I/ATLAS has consistently only done comety things. And sure as the sun will rise, Avi Loeb has consistently misconstrued it as something else.

If you did think the gas

Dust grains start off entrained in the gas jets, but >100 km from the nucleus they do their own thing. Thin gas is turned back by solar wind at > few hundred km. Dense dust grains keep going until pushed by solar radiation. The dust tails' lengths don't tell us about gas loss the way Loeb claims.

He very ridiculously doesn't know the difference.
The images he shows (e.g., Buchener & Niebling's) are of DUST. Jewitt & Luu's Nordic image used R filter specifically to look at dust, not gas; they even say they can't see gas plasma structures and the antitail is the "sunward fan of DUST".

Yes: he is using the lengths of the DUST tails to say something about GAS loss rates. They are very different. He sure does TALK about gas loss rates but he has NO CLUE how much gas has been lost. His little calculations look like science, but they are gibberish.

My name is Ozymandias, I’m here to say, I’m the king of kings and the kid don’t play, now these are my works, let you gaze upon, and the beat don’t stop ‘til the break of dawn, I said a hip hop, the hippie the hippie to the hip hip-hop and you don’t stop. Rapture, be pure. Peace!

maybe. but it wouldn’t help his case. remember the tail is foreshortened from our perspective and likely much longer than 3 million km, so dust still needs to be accelerated and we still can infer nothing about gas loss rates.