NASA's Webb telescope finds unusual water ice in 3I/ATLAS
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has found something unusual in the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS: its water ice looks different from what we see in comets closer to home.
Instead of the usual ice fingerprints, 3I/ATLAS shows a pronounced 3-micron band, with the 1.5- and 2.0-micron bands remarkably faint or entirely absent, suggesting that the ice is not in the form usually seen in solar system comets as it drifts away from our solar system.
Icy 3I/ATLAS resembles trans-Neptunian objects
Scientists say 3I/ATLAS's icy makeup is surprisingly similar to objects way out beyond Neptune, called trans-Neptunian objects.
Dr. Martin Cordiner, part of the team, shared that studying this could help us understand how planets form around other stars.
As Dr. Silvia Protopapa put it, these findings open up fresh clues about what icy bodies are like far beyond our solar system.