{"id":495473,"date":"2026-02-21T21:50:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T21:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/495473\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T21:50:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T21:50:08","slug":"3i-atlas-spraying-something-as-it-exits-the-solar-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/495473\/","title":{"rendered":"3I\/ATLAS Spraying Something as It Exits the Solar System"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scientists have watched in fascination as interstellar object 3I\/ATLAS, only the third of its kind spotted in the solar system so far, hurtled past several planets<\/a> and made its closest pass of the Sun in October<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And as it\u2019s on its way out, likely never to be seen again, scientists are still making astonishing new findings about the extremely rare visitor. For instance, it appears to have started spewing huge amounts of water into space.<\/p>\n

Its closest pass of the Sun really kicked things off, as evidenced in observations by NASA\u2019s SPHEREx near-infrared space observatory, which was launched a mere half a year before its solar flyby in late October.<\/p>\n

\u201cComet 3I\/ATLAS was full-on erupting into space in December 2025, after its close flyby of the Sun, causing it to significantly brighten,\u201d said Johns Hopkins astronomer Carey Lisse, lead author of a recent paper<\/a> about the SPHEREx findings, in a NASA statement<\/a>. \u201cEven water ice was quickly sublimating into gas in interplanetary space.\u201d<\/p>\n

The release also dislodged even more intriguing materials that potentially date back billions of years.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd since comets consist of about one-third bulk water ice, it was releasing an abundance of new, carbon-rich material that had remained locked in ice deep below the surface,\u201d Lisse added. \u201cWe are now seeing the usual range of early solar system materials, including organic molecules, soot, and rock dust, that are typically emitted by a comet.\u201d<\/p>\n

The SPHEREx observations don\u2019t look quite like you\u2019d expect with a regular comet, though.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe comet has spent ages traversing interstellar space, being bombarded by highly energetic cosmic rays, and has likely formed a crust that\u2019s been processed by that radiation,\u201d SPHEREx instrument scientist Phil Korngut said in a statement. \u201cBut now that the Sun\u2019s energy has had time to penetrate deep into the comet, the pristine ices below the surface are warming up and erupting, releasing a cocktail of chemicals that haven\u2019t been exposed to space for billions of years.\u201d<\/p>\n

More on 3I\/ATLAS: 3I\/ATLAS Still Showing Strange Protrusion as It Approaches Earth<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scientists have watched in fascination as interstellar object 3I\/ATLAS, only the third of its kind spotted in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":495474,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[64,63,128,285],"class_list":["post-495473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495473","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=495473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/495474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}