![3I/ATLAS: NASA’s TESS Releases 28-Hr Long Footage Of Exocomet; Harvard’s Avi Loeb Looks For More Anomalies [WATCH]](https://www.ufofeed.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/100079_7ukr-1024x576.jpg "3I/ATLAS: NASA’s TESS Releases 28-Hr Long Footage Of Exocomet; Harvard’s Avi Loeb Looks For More Anomalies [WATCH]")
3I/ATLAS, the third-ever interstellar object since 1I/Oumuamua (2017) and 2I/Borisov (2019) to cruise through the solar system, has baffled both researchers and the lay. The anomalous nature of the exocomet has left some wondering if the interstellar visitor is something else entirely…an alien probe perhaps? The object entered the Oort Cloud, the outer edges of the solar system, some 8000 years ago (based on its trajectory and velocity). It was first spotted by the ATLAS observatory on July 01, 2025. On October 29 3I/ATLAS entered its perihelion phase and on December 19, it flew past the closest to Earth at a distance of 1.8 AU or roughly 270 million kilometers.
All eyes have been on the nearly 5-6 km long exocomet, including NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, aka TESS.
Primarily deployed to detect exoplanets in the nearest dwarf stars in 2018 for two years, TESS, in its extended mission, does more than its job profile. Between 15 and 22 January 2026, the probe recorded several images during its scans. The images from January 15, 18, and 19 were stitched together by MIT scientist Daniel Muthukrishna, which formed 28 hours of footage. Watch it below
Meanwhile, renowned Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb, in his latest Medium blog remarked on the TESS data. He stated
3I/ATLAS appears as a bright glowing dot with an anti-tail directed towards the Sun, across a crowded field of background stars.
He further states
In collaboration with Toni Scarmato, I plan to search the resulting video for a periodic variability in brightness and wobbling of the anti-tail as a result of the rotation period of 7.1 hours.
What’s next in the agenda? Prof Loeb reminds
The next highlight would involve the passage of 3I/ATLAS near the Hill radius of Jupiter (where Jupiter’s gravity dominates over the Sun’s tide) on March 16, 2026, when the Juno spacecraft will be able to observe it from a distance of 53.6 million kilometers with its optical and infrared cameras, particle detector, magnetic field and plasma wave sensors, microwave radiometer and radio dipole antenna.
If 3I/ATLAS will transmit a technological signal or release probes into a Jupiter-bound orbit, the ending of the 3I/ATLAS video will involve a climax better than any science fiction movie imagined by script writers in Hollywood.
Cover: NASA’s TESS & Avi Loeb