Astronomers have found that interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS contains an unusually large amount of methanol. Every interstellar object that passes through our solar system offers a rare chance to sample material forged around another star. Now, new observations of comet 3I/ATLAS using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have revealed a chemical surprise: the comet is [...]

A process called ‘hot bottom burning’ helped scientists determine the age of 3I/ATLAS.

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The interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS carries a chemical fingerprint unlike anything in our Solar System, and it may have formed 10 to 12 billion years ago, before our Sun even existed, according to two papers published in the journal Nature.

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