Unexplained Interstellar Enigma Baffles NASA Scientists—New Revelations Deepen the Cosmic Mystery

So, picture this: an oddly intriguing interstellar visitor just crashed our cosmic party, and NASA is scratching its head in disbelief. Yep, the James Webb Space Telescope—the snazzy successor to Hubble—has done it again, peering into the vastness with its Infrared vision and snapping a close-up of a comet named 3I/ATLAS. This isn’t your everyday snowball; it’s the third known cosmic wanderer from beyond our solar system, trailing behind two other famous guests, ‘Oumuamua and Borisov. What secrets does this chilly comet carry from a time billions of years ago? Could its bizarre chemical makeup challenge what we thought about space? Buckle up as we dive into what JWST has uncovered about this ancient cosmic traveler—and why it’s making astronomers buzz like they just found the universe’s secret diary. LEARN MORE.

A peculiar object that has defied NASA’s expectations has been identified in space, which has been labelled as an ‘interstellar visitor’.

Once again, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has done its job in making more groundbreaking space-related discoveries.

From laying its lens on its first ever exoplanet, to theories about humans living on our blue planet inside a black hole, the Hubble Telescope’s successor is doing its job in finding out more about our universe.

Now, it has used its Infrared vision and its Near-Infrared Spectrograph instrument (NIRspec) to observe a comet named 3I/ATLAS.

It focused on the object earlier this month, having first been discovered on 1 July by the ATLAS (Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System) survey telescope, and it is the third ever object making its way through our solar system that is said to have come from around another star.

The previous two were discovered in 2017 and 2019, being named 1I/’Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov.

JWST has made another massive discovery about our universe (Getty Stock Image)

In observing the object, details such as its size, physical properties, and chemical makeup will become more clear, as a preprint paper has outlined why studying the comet is so key to understanding our universe.

Astronomers found that the object can be compared to what we know about conditions around the sun 4.6 billion years ago, when planets, asteroids, and comets were forming.

Essentially, when comets approach the sun, they are heated up and frozen materials in them are transformed into gases, resulting in something called ‘outgassing’, which gives them the iconic tail and halo that we associate with comets.

At the moment, 3I/ATLAS is outgassing as it reaches out sun, with the JWST and NIRSpec finding that carbon dioxide, water, water ice, carbon dioxide, and carbonyl sulfide, which is known for its grim smell, were being emitted.

The comet gave off the highest ratio of carbon dioxide to water ever observed too, which could mean that its core is rich in the former.

It would mean that its ices were exposed to higher levels of radiation than objects in our solar system are, with experts suggesting explanations on why the comet may have a high CO2 content.

The interstellar object is billions of years older than our solar system (NASA)

They say that it could have been formed in a site known as the ‘carbon dioxide ice line’ in the swirling cloud of matter, or a ‘protoplanetary disk’, which made its way around its star.

The low levels of water in its coma also suggest that 3I/ATLAS may inhibit heat as its icy core is penetrated.

These new findings add to what is already known by scientists, including the previous discovery that the comet may be around three billion years older than our solar system.

Due to the object’s steep trajectory, it was suggested that it comes from the Milky Way’s ‘thick disk’ of stars’, which is an ancient part of our galaxy which has been around far longer than the ‘thin disk’, where the sun was formed.

There’s still more to uncover though – take it away, JWST.