Interstellar comet 3I/Atlas with high deuterium hints ancient origins
Meet 3I/Atlas, a comet from way outside our solar system that's giving scientists a peek into the Milky Way's past.
Discovered in 2025, this icy traveler has unusually high deuterium levels, hinting it formed in a super-cold part of the galaxy—even before our Sun existed.
Studying it helps researchers piece together how planets like ours started forming ages ago.
University of Michigan studies 3I/Atlas
A team from the University of Michigan used the ALMA observatory last fall to examine 3I/Atlas.
The comet's core is pretty big, somewhere between 440 meters and 5.6km wide, and it's now racing past Jupiter at about 220570km/h.
Alongside famous visitors like 'Oumuamua and 'Borisov, 3I/Atlas is helping us understand what early planetary building blocks might have looked like in the ancient galaxy.