{"id":213512,"date":"2025-10-14T20:16:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T20:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/213512\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T20:16:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T20:16:07","slug":"interstellar-comet-3i-atlas-is-spewing-water-like-a-cosmic-fire-hydrant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/213512\/","title":{"rendered":"Interstellar Comet 3I\/ATLAS Is Spewing Water Like a Cosmic Fire Hydrant"},"content":{"rendered":"

Comet 3I\/Atlas continues to be full of surprises. As well as being only the third interstellar object<\/a> ever detected, new analysis shows it is producing hydroxyl (OH) emissions, with these compounds betraying the presence of water on its surface. This discovery was made by a team of researchers at Auburn University in Alabama using NASA\u2019s<\/a> Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, and was described in a study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Hydroxyl compounds are detectable via the ultraviolet signature they produce. But on Earth, a lot of UV wavelengths are blocked by the atmosphere, which is why the researchers had to use the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory\u2014a space telescope free from interference experienced by observatories on Earth.<\/p>\n

Water is present in virtually every comet<\/a> seen in the solar system, so much so that the chemical and physical reactions of water are used to measure, catalog, and track these celestial objects and how they react to the heat of the sun. Finding it on 3I\/ATLAS means being able to study its characteristics using the same scale used for regular comets, and this information could in future be useful data for studying the processes of comets that originate in other star systems as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we detect water\u2014or even its faint ultraviolet echo, OH\u2014from an interstellar comet, we\u2019re reading a note from another planetary system,\u201d said Dennis Bodewits, an Auburn University physicist who collaborated on the research, in a press statement<\/a>. \u201cIt tells us that the ingredients for life\u2019s chemistry are not unique to our own.\u201d<\/p>\n

Comets are frozen hunks of rock, gases, and dust<\/a> that usually orbit stars (the exceptions being the three interstellar objects found so far). When they\u2019re far away from a star, they\u2019re completely frozen, but as they get closer, solar radiation causes their frozen elements to heat up and sublimate\u2014turn from solid into gas\u2014with some of this material emitted from the comet\u2019s nucleus thanks to the star\u2019s energy, forming a \u201ctail.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

But with 3I\/ATLAS, data collected revealed an unexpected detail: OH production by the comet was already happening far away from the sun\u2014when the comet was more than three times farther from the sun than the Earth\u2014in a region of the solar system where temperatures normally aren\u2019t sufficient to easily produce the sublimation of ice. Already at that distance, however, 3I\/ATLAS was leaking water at the rate of about 40 kilograms per second, a flow comparable\u2014the study authors explain\u2014to that of a \u201chydrant at maximum power.\u201d<\/p>\n

This detail would seem to indicate a more complex structure than what is usually observed in comets in the solar system. It could, for example, be explained by the presence of small fragments of ice detaching from the comet\u2019s nucleus, and which are then vaporized by the heat of sunlight, going on to feed a gaseous cloud that surrounds the celestial body. This is something that has so far been observed only in a small number of extremely distant comets, and which could provide valuable information about the processes from which 3I\/ATLAS originated.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery interstellar comet so far has been a surprise,\u201d said Zexi Xing, an Auburn University researcher and coauthor of the discovery, in a press statement<\/a>. \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. Each one is rewriting what we thought we knew about how planets and comets form around stars.\u201d<\/p>\n

This story originally appeared on WIRED Italia<\/a> and has been translated from Italian.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Comet 3I\/Atlas continues to be full of surprises. As well as being only the third interstellar object ever…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":213513,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[64,63,10474,131,128,285,15759],"class_list":{"0":"post-213512","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-comet","11":"tag-nasa","12":"tag-science","13":"tag-space","14":"tag-telescope"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213512\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}