US EditionMystery Deepens Around Third Interstellar Visitor 3I/ATLAS
- Astronomers discovered the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS passing through the Solar System in July 2025, with observations from telescopes including JWST and Hubble.
- The comet's unusual composition and trajectory suggest it originated from the Milky Way's thick disk and may be about 7 billion years old, older than our Solar System.
- Studies reveal 3I/ATLAS has a small nucleus under 5.5 kilometers, a large bright coma, and an exceptionally high carbon dioxide to water ratio in its coma.
- The carbon dioxide to water ratio is roughly 8:1, sixteen times higher than typical Solar System comets, indicating the comet likely formed near a 'carbon dioxide ice line' in its original protoplanetary disk.
- Ongoing observations with JWST and other instruments aim to study 3I/ATLAS further until it leaves the Solar System after October 2025, potentially revealing more about its origin.
62 Articles
62 Articles
Telescopes Reveal Surprising Chemistry of a Rare Interstellar Object Passing Through Our Solar System
Called 3I/ATLAS, the comet is only the third of its kind known to astronomers, and it’s likely been heading our way for billions of years, carrying pristine material from another star system
TESS spotted 3I/ATLAS two months before it was discovered. It was even active then
One of the advantages of having so many telescopes watching large parts of the sky is that, if astronomers find something interesting, there are probably images of it from before it was officially discovered sitting in the data archives of other satellites that no one thought to look at. That has certainly been the case for our newest interstellar visitor, 3I/ATLAS, which, though discovered in early July, had been visible on other telescopes as …
Interstellar object incoming: 3I/ATLAS - comet or alien tech?
“No one would have believed…in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched, keenly and closely, by intelligence greater than man’s; that we were being studied, as one with a microscope might scrutinise creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water.” So begins HG Wells’ classic sci-fi novel, War of the Worlds. However, according to some astrophysicists, the prospect that we’re being studied by some superior a…
The interstellar object 3I/ATLAS, discovered in July of this year, provides headlines. Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb believes it is possible that there will be
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