The levels of a heavy form of hydrogen in 3I/ATLAS are 30 to 40 times higher than in Earth's oceans, suggesting the comet has a cold and distant origin. Image courtesy of International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/B. Bolin.
Joel Kontinen
The presence of water does not mean that this comet is
teeming with life. It needs intelligent design to make water and other
ingredients turn into life.
The
interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS contains water and carbon molecules at levels never
before seen in our solar system. This suggests that it formed around an alien
star radically different from and much older than the sun.
Astronomers
have been tracking 3I/ATLAS since it entered our solar system last year – and
it is weird. It appears to be packed with far more carbon dioxide and water than
almost any other comet we have seen, and early estimates put its age
at 8 billion years – almost twice as old as the sun.
Martin
Cordiner at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland and his
colleagues have found that its levels of deuterium – a form of hydrogen with an
extra neutron – are at least 10 times higher than in any comet we have seen
before.
Source:
Alex Wilkins 2026
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