fromMail Online
1 day agoMysterious 'heartbeat' pulsating from 3I/ATLAS as it nears Earth
The natural explanation for these new pulses is that the object's solid core spins once every 16.16 hours, with pockets of ice on its surface heating up and turning directly into gas when they face the sun, shooting out the jets like clockwork. This is believed to happen because the Sun's warmth hits those exact ice spots at the same point in each spin, blasting material outward at about 985mph and spraying the timed bursts over distances up to roughly 15,900 miles.
Science