{"id":472191,"date":"2026-03-12T21:29:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T21:29:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/472191\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T21:29:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T21:29:17","slug":"a-fingerprint-from-another-solar-system-latest-3i-atlas-data-proves-interstellar-comet-is-unlike-anything-weve-seen-before","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/472191\/","title":{"rendered":"‘A fingerprint from another solar system’. Latest 3I\/ATLAS data proves interstellar comet is unlike anything we’ve seen before"},"content":{"rendered":"

Comet 3I\/ATLAS is packed with an unusually large amount of methanol, an organic molecule that could be considered a pre-cursor for life as we know it.<\/p>\n

A study of the interstellar comet using the Atacama Large Millimeter\/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile reveals its chemical structure is unlike the vast majority of comets we find within our own Solar System.<\/p>\n

As such, its slowly revealing what the conditions might have been like in the star system in which it formed, in a far-flung corner of our Galaxy.<\/p>\n

\"ObservationsCredit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech<\/p>\n

A visitor from beyond the Solar System<\/p>\n

Comet 3I\/ATLAS was discovered on 1 July 2025<\/a> and was quickly identified as being an ‘interstellar’ comet, which means it originated beyond our Solar System.<\/p>\n

The vast majority of comets<\/a> we know about originated in the outskirts of our Solar System, and only three interstellar comets \u2013 including 3I\/ATLAS \u2013 have ever been discovered.<\/p>\n

\"ImageImage of comet 3I\/ATLAS captured by NASA\u2019s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, 2 October 2025. Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/University of Arizona<\/p>\n

3I\/ATLAS is not in orbit around our Sun, but is instead passing through our Solar System and, once it leaves, will be gone from our view forever.<\/p>\n

Since its discovery, astronomers have been pointing Earth’s largest ground-based and space-based telescopes at it.<\/p>\n

It’s been observed by the Hubble Space Telescope<\/a>, by the James Webb Space Telescope<\/a>, by spacecraft and rovers at Mars<\/a> and even the Juice spacecraft on its way to Jupiter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

ALMA’s observations of 3I\/ATLAS
\n\"CompositeComposite showing comet 3I\/ATLAS’s movement across the sky, captured by ESO\u2019s Very Large Telescope. Images were captured over the course of 13 minutes on the night of 3 July 2025. Credit: ESO\/O. Hainaut<\/p>\n

The Atacama Large Millimeter\/submillimeter Array is one of the most powerful telescopes on Earth, located under the dark skies of Chile’s Atacama Desert.<\/p>\n

It’s operated by the European Southern Observatory, whose other Chile-based observatory, the Very Large Telescope, was one of the first to observe 3I\/ATLAS<\/a> after its discovery.<\/p>\n

New research using ALMAS reveals 3I\/ATLAS is full of an unusually large amount of the organic molecule methanol.<\/p>\n

In fact, it contains much more methanol than almost all known comets in our own Solar System.<\/p>\n

\"Artist'sArtist’s impression of 3I\/ATLAS passing near the Sun. Methanol gas is shown in blue; hydrogen cyanide is shown in orange. Credit: NSF\/AUI\/NSF NRAO\/M.Weiss<\/p>\n

“Observing 3I\/ATLAS is like taking a fingerprint from another solar system,” says Nathan Roth, lead author of the study and a professor with American University.<\/p>\n

“The details reveal what it\u2019s made of, and it\u2019s bursting with methanol in a way we just don\u2019t usually see in comets in our own Solar System.”<\/p>\n

The team behind the study used ALMA\u2019s Atacama Compact Array on multiple dates in late 2025 to observe 3I\/ATLAS as it approached the Sun.<\/p>\n

\"FourFour antennas of the Atacama Large Millimeter\/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in the Atacama Desert, Chile. Credit: ESO\/Jos\u00e9 Francisco Salgado (josefrancisco.org)<\/p>\n

This close-approach to the centre of the Solar System caused 3I\/ATLAS to heat up, sunlight warming its frozen surface and releasing gas and dust out into space.<\/p>\n

The effects of this were the formation of a glowing halo, or coma, around the core of the comet, a well-observed phenomena in Solar System comets that get too close to the Sun.<\/p>\n

Astronomers can study light coming from the coma to reveal a comet’s chemical fingerprints, and this team were able to decipher the material 3I\/ATLAS is composed of.<\/p>\n

That gave them the chance to study how comets might form in distant systems.<\/p>\n

\"ImageImage of comet 3I\/ATLAS on 6 November 2025, captured by ESA’s Juice spacecraft’s JANUS science camera. Processed to reveal the structure of the comet’s coma. Credit: ESA\/Juice\/JANUS
\nHere comes the science<\/p>\n

The team studying ALMA’s data on 3I\/ATLAS focused on the faint fingerprints of two molecules: methanol, a type of alcohol, and hydrogen cyanide, an organic molecule commonly found in comets.<\/p>\n

ALMA data shows 3I\/ATLAS contains more methanol compared to hydrogen cyanide, beyond what’s normally seen in comets that formed within our Solar System.<\/p>\n

The team measured the ratio of methanol to hydrogen cyanide and found 3I\/ATLAS to be among the most methanol\u2011rich comets ever seen.<\/p>\n

That means, the team say, the icy material from 3I\/ATLAS was either formed by or underwent entirely different conditions than those that shape comets in our own Solar System.<\/p>\n

The James Webb Space Telescope had already found 3I\/ATLAS to have a coma dominated by carbon dioxide when it was far from the Sun, but the ALMA results show that methanol is also present.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe James Webb Space Telescope observed interstellar comet 3I\/ATLAS on 6 August 2025 with its Near-Infrared Spectrograph instrument. Credit: NASA\/JWST<\/p>\n

ALMA also revealed how different molecules move away from the comet, showing differences between methanol and hydrogen cyanide.<\/p>\n

The team say hydrogen cyanide appears to mostly come from the comet\u2019s core, and that’s typical for comets in our Solar System.<\/p>\n

Yet methanol appears to come from both the nucleus and from ice particles in the coma.<\/p>\n

These ice particles turn into gas as the comet gets closer to the Sun and release methanol out into space.<\/p>\n

This is the first time detailed outgassing has been traced in an interstellar object.<\/p>\n

\"ObservationsObservations of comet 3I\/ATLAS by NASA\u2019s SPHEREx mission in December 2025 reveal dust, water, organic molecules and carbon dioxide within its coma. Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech<\/p>\n

What’s clear is that interstellar comets act as frozen time capsules from deep space, giving astronomers the chance to study conditions around distant stars without having to send spacecraft there.<\/p>\n

And astronomers believe that, as more powerful observatories like the Vera Rubin Observatory begin to observe the Universe, we’ll find many more interstellar comets<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That means we could be on the cusp of a new tool to understanding the complexities of the cosmos.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Comet 3I\/ATLAS is packed with an unusually large amount of methanol, an organic molecule that could be considered…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":472192,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[90,416,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-472191","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-space","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=472191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/472192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=472191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=472191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=472191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}