{"id":297431,"date":"2025-10-12T14:04:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-12T14:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/297431\/"},"modified":"2025-10-12T14:04:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-12T14:04:11","slug":"interstellar-object-is-spraying-something-weird-scientists-find-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/297431\/","title":{"rendered":"Interstellar Object Is Spraying Something Weird, Scientists Find"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new analysis of our solar system\u2019s interstellar interloper, 3I\/ATLAS<\/a>, reveal that it\u2019s spewing huge amounts of water \u2014 and astronomers can\u2019t immediately explain why.<\/p>\n

The object, which is widely believed to be comet, showed strong ultraviolet emissions that are unmistakable telltales of hydroxyl gas (OH), a byproduct of water, when astronomers imaged it with the with NASA\u2019s Neil Gehrels Swift space telescope before it disappeared behind the Sun. The emissions could only be spotted from space because the ultraviolet light would get absorbed in the atmosphere.<\/p>\n

Their findings, detailed in a new study<\/a> published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, argue that the presence of all this OH indicates the comet is ejecting water vapor at a torrential rate of about 88 pounds per second \u2014 which is around the same rate as a fire hose running at full blast, according to a press release<\/a> about the findings.<\/p>\n

The most extraordinary thing is that this was spotted happening pretty far from the Sun, at a heliocentric distance of about three astronomical units (AU) away, or three times the distance between the Earth and our star. Typically, comets stray much closer to the Sun before the water ice in their core called a nucleus begins to sublimate, or instantly transform from a solid to a gas. Something else must be driving the water dumping in 3I\/ATLAS \u2014 which also implies, tantalizingly, that the comet must harbor considerable stores of water for this process to keep going.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we detect water \u2014 or even its faint ultraviolet echo, OH, \u2014 from an interstellar comet, we\u2019re reading a note from another planetary system,\u201d coauthor Dennis Bodewits, a professor of physics at Auburn TK, said in the release. \u201cIt tells us that the ingredients for life\u2019s chemistry are not unique to our own.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s another example of the fascinating strangeness of interstellar objects like 3I\/ATLAS. Think of it as a sample of somewhere very far away, perhaps tens of millions of light years away, careening straight past our doorstep. That it\u2019s in many ways bizarre compared to local comets hints at just how unique these unimaginable alien realms must be, and how we have so much more to understand of how star systems form and how their structures may evolve.<\/p>\n

Typically, a comet\u2019s coma, a huge halo of gas and dust that give comets their glowing appearance, begin to form as the object nears the Sun \u2014 or another star, presumably \u2014 and heats up. The heat either sublimates or vaporizes the material in the nucleus at its center, which is many times smaller than the coma that catches our eyes from the ground. While it travels, the coma stretches behind the comet, forming its trademark tail.<\/p>\n

3I\/ATLAS\u2019s coma has already surprised us in many ways. Its chemistry is strange compared to our own comets<\/a>, and it appears to have an astonishingly high ratio of carbon dioxide to water<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s causing the outpouring of water vapor is still unclear. The astronomers speculate that sunlight might be heating up the ice grains released from the nucleus, which then get vaporized into the surrounding coma.<\/p>\n

Astronomers believe that 3I\/ATLAS came from the center of the Milky Way, where it was likely booted out of its original star system by a gravitational disturbance like the close flyby of another star, braving interstellar space before eventually cruising through our solar neighborhood. Based on these inferences, astronomers estimated that the comet must be billions of years old, perhaps three billion years older than the Sun itself. It\u2019s not only a snapshot of a different part of the galaxy, but a different era of the cosmos altogether.<\/p>\n

Right now, 3I\/ATLAS is flying behind the Sun, so we can observed it from Earth. But scientists have been able to catch a glimpse of it using spacecraft stationed near Mars<\/a>, and it\u2019ll soon swing back into full view in late November.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery interstellar comet so far has been a surprise,\u201d said lead author Zexi Xing, a postdoctoral researcher at Auburn University, said in a statement<\/a> about the work referencing the two previously discovered interstellar objects. \u201c\u2018Oumuamua was dry, Borisov was rich in carbon monoxide, and now ATLAS is giving up water at a distance where we didn\u2019t expect it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEach one,\u201d Xing added, \u201cis rewriting what we thought we knew about how planets and comets form around stars.\u201d<\/p>\n

More on space:<\/strong> Astronomer: 30+ Percent Probability Interstellar Object Is Alien Craft Disguised as Comet<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new analysis of our solar system\u2019s interstellar interloper, 3I\/ATLAS, reveal that it\u2019s spewing huge amounts of water…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":297143,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[136365,33424,5695,159,151595,67,132,68,151594],"class_list":{"0":"post-297431","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-interstellar-comet","9":"tag-interstellar-space","10":"tag-our-solar-system","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-ultraviolet-emissions","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us","16":"tag-water-vapor"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115361576859427148","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}