3I/ATLAS rotates every 7.1 hours since perihelion, study reports

A new paper by Abraham 'Avi' Loeb and Toni Scarmato reports that the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS has a rotation period of 7.1 hours after perihelion, based on jet position angle analysis and photometric time series, and that the jet's periodic wobble did not change during perihelion.

Harvard astrophysicist Abraham 'Avi' Loeb and Toni Scarmato of an Italian observatory published a new paper on the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS. The paper measures the object's rotation after perihelion and describes the observational methods used. The authors used two independent approaches to estimate the rotation period. They report that a periodic wobble in the jet persisted through perihelion without apparent change. Key findings: - The reported rotation period for 3I/ATLAS after perihelion is 7.1 hours. - The period estimate comes from two independent methods: harmonic modeling of jet position angle variability and an independent photometric time series. - The authors report that the periodic wobble of the jet around the rotation axis did not change during perihelion. - The paper notes an apparent alignment of the rotation axis with the direction of the Sun at large distances and reports this has a reported probability of about 1.5–6% to occur at random in interstellar space. Summary: The paper refines observational measurements of 3I/ATLAS's rotation and documents continuity of a jet-position wobble through perihelion. The authors also report that the object's rotation axis appears unusually aligned with the Sun's direction at large distances, with a low reported probability for a random occurrence. Undetermined at this time.