Content tagged "comets".
3 items (3 articles, 0 stories)
JWST detected methane and an unusually high abundance of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS. The chemical ratios look nothing like those of comets born in our own solar system. This is the first time we have directly measured the composition of material made around another star.
That long glowing streak crossing the night sky isn't just one tail — it's two. A white, curving dust tail and a blue, razor-straight ion tail, shaped by completely different forces. Here's what's actually going on.
Discovered in 2025, 3I/ATLAS is only the third interstellar object ever detected. How do we know it came from outside the solar system? What makes it different from ʻOumuamua and 2I/Borisov? And why did ESA and NASA scramble to observe it so quickly? Here's what the data is telling us — and what it might unlock about planet formation across the galaxy.