Two arXiv papers I had reported on previously have been updated. Nothing Earth-shattering, but:
Astrophysics > Earth and Planetary Astrophysics arxiv.org/abs/2507.02757v3
[Submitted on 3 Jul 2025 (v1), last revised 24 Jul 2025 (this version, v3)]
Seligman, D. Z. Micheli, M. Farnocchia, D. et al. Discovery and Preliminary Characterization of a Third Interstellar Object: 3I/ATLAS
Version 1 states: “All of these data point to a clear action for the community – more observations across the spectrum are necessary.” Seligman and coauthors have not left it to the community, but did so themselves. The new paper is longer, with new sections.
arxiv.org/abs/2507.12922v3
[Submitted on 17 Jul 2025 (v1), last revised 25 Jul 2025 (this version, v3)]
de la Fuente Marcos, R. Licandro, J. Alarcon, M. R. et al. Assessing interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS with the 10.4 m Gran Telescopio Canarias and the Two-meter Twin Telescope
These revisions are more minor… but still not just spelling, grammar, and graphic design.
And that’s the risk of arXiv entries. Even assuming the best- that these papers are preprints, already accepted by a real journal- the level of editing and revision is still not considered final. Authors are ready, willing, and eager to improve their work, and do so, sometimes on a scale of a few days. In the case of Seligman et al., they actually got time on another telescope (the VLT– not trivial at all) and updated their paper with the new results. Will there be v4?
And of course, the assumption of ‘the best’ is still only an assumption. I’ll post the not-so-best…