Aug. 27 (UPI) — NASA observed interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS through the lens of the James Webb Space Telescope for the first time. On Aug. 6, the telescope with its near-infrared Spectrograph instrument analyzed the comet as it provided more information about its size, physical properties, and chemical makeup. This kind of observation can help make clear what conditions were like …
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Ever since interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS whizzed into our cosmic neighborhood in July, astronomers have been racing to uncover its characteristics. Now that the powerful James Webb Space Telescope has taken a good look at this icy interloper, it seems to be weirder than anyone imagined. A preprint submitted to the Astrophysical Journal Letters for peer review on Monday, August 25, …
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The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has observed the interstellar visitor 3I/ATLAS for the first time. The powerful space telescope trained its infrared vision and its Near-Infrared Spectrograph instrument (NIRspec) on the comet on Aug. 6, 2025. Discovered on July 1 by the ATLAS (Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System) survey telescope, 3I/ATLAS is just the third-ever object found drifting through …
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The near-Earth asteroid Bennu contains stardust that is older than our solar system, as well as organic materials and ices from interstellar space, three fresh studies of the asteroid’s sample materials show. Scientists all over the world have been poring over samples of Bennu ever since material from the asteroid was brought to Earth in 2023, courtesy of NASA‘s OSIRIS-REx …
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There has been much hype and discussion surrounding 3I/ATLAS since it was first spotted in our Solar System back in 1 July 2025. Unlike the vast majority of comets we observe from Earth, which originate from the outer edges of our Solar System, 3I/ATLAS is an ‘interstellar visitor’. That means it was born out in deep space, it’s temporarily passing …
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A prominent Harvard astrophysicist has claimed that a mysterious object moving through our solar system could be a nuclear-powered spacecraft. Professor Avi Loeb, director of the Galileo Project, which hunts for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence, said the interstellar object known as 3I/ATLAS exhibits characteristics suggesting it is not a typical comet, contrary to NASA’s assessment. One of those signs is …
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3I/ATLAS, the third interstellar object making headlines today, is the oldest of the three. Kakharov and Loeb wrote in the paper that it has a median age of 4.6 billion years. It originated from the Milky Way’s thick disk, the region where older, lower metallicity stars reside. The researchers say that this shows that “ISOs are ejected from planetary systems …
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Press enter or click to view image in full size The image of 3I/ATLAS imaged by the Very Large Telescope in Chile on July, 4 2025 (left) along with its projected surface brightness profile. The angular resolution of our best telescopes is about a thousand times worse than necessary to resolve an object which is a few kilometers in size. …
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Space might seem like an empty, featureless void, but new research has shown that this is far from true. Scientists have discovered an ‘interstellar tunnel’ that connects our solar system to distant stars. In a new study, scientists at the Max Planck Institute identified two hot tunnels, stretching across vast regions of space. The researchers gathered thousands of measurements of …
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In the past decade, astronomers have witnessed three interstellar objects (ISOs) passing through the Solar System. This included the enigmatic ‘Oumuamua in 2017, the interstellar comet 2I/Borisov in 2019, and 3I/ATLAS in July 2025. This latest object also appears to be a comet based on recent observations that showed it was actively releasing water vapor as it neared the Sun. …
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