NASA's Webb Telescope Detects Methane on Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS
By
Alise Fisher
Properly proved. Has structure, has flavour, has a point.
Summary
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has detected methane on interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, marking the first mid-infrared chemical fingerprint of an interstellar object. The observations were made using Webb's MIRI instrument as the comet traveled out of our solar system after passing the Sun. The findings were published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Key quotes
· 3 pulledNASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has collected its first mid-infrared chemical fingerprint of an interstellar object during a recent revisit to comet 3I/ATLAS.
The observations were taken using Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) on two separate dates as the comet traveled back out of our solar system after whipping around the Sun (post-perihelion).
The first observation occurred Dec. 15 to 16, when the comet was about 205 million miles (329 million kilometers)
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