""fuzzy white ball," per NASA associate administrator Amit Kshatriya, which is being lit up by the Sun - a "cloud of dust and ice called the coma, which is shed by the comet.""
""It is easy to explain a plume of gas and dust extended towards the Sun as a result of the illumination of pockets of ice by sunlight or away from the Sun as a result of radiation pressure or the solar wind,""
""It is also possible to explain a trailing stream that the object leaves behind as the drag on the solar wind slows it down relative to the object.""
""But it is much more difficult to account for a plume extended perpendicular to the direction of the Sun and ahead of the object,""
NASA released HiRISE images showing interstellar object 3I/ATLAS passing Mars, depicting a sunlit fuzzy ball with a coma of dust and ice. The photograph was taken from about 19 million miles with roughly 19 miles per pixel resolution, the closest view yet. Some astronomers, including Avi Loeb, note jets appearing to point toward the object's motion rather than the Sun, which could be unusual for cometary activity. NASA has not published a detailed HiRISE analysis and has emphasized that the balance of evidence supports a natural, though atypical, comet.
Read at Futurism
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