Webb and SPHEREx space telescopes observe interstellar Comet 3I/Atlas
Both the Webb Space Telescope and the newer SPHEREx space telescopes have now been aimed by scientists at the interstellar comet 3I/Atlas.
According to the paper describing the Webb results, the comet’s coma is dominated by carbon dioxide gas.
The SPHEREx results [pdf] also show a strong signal of carbon dioxice in the coma, as well as a strong signal of water ice in its nucleus.
These results, along with all the observations by multiple other telescopes in space and on the ground, are in line with what is expected from a comet, with the kind of unique differences expected from each object. There is nothing seen so far from the data to suggest anything alien about it, despite the claims of some pubicity-seeking scientists who don’t even specialize in comet research.
The big scientific discovery here is that this interstellar comet is so much like comets that come from our own solar system. The implication is that other solar systems have great similarities to our own. .
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
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"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Both the Webb Space Telescope and the newer SPHEREx space telescopes have now been aimed by scientists at the interstellar comet 3I/Atlas.
According to the paper describing the Webb results, the comet’s coma is dominated by carbon dioxide gas.
The SPHEREx results [pdf] also show a strong signal of carbon dioxice in the coma, as well as a strong signal of water ice in its nucleus.
These results, along with all the observations by multiple other telescopes in space and on the ground, are in line with what is expected from a comet, with the kind of unique differences expected from each object. There is nothing seen so far from the data to suggest anything alien about it, despite the claims of some pubicity-seeking scientists who don’t even specialize in comet research.
The big scientific discovery here is that this interstellar comet is so much like comets that come from our own solar system. The implication is that other solar systems have great similarities to our own. .
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Right. Moreover, given the ease with which far-flung comets can be (and must have been) detached and liberated from solar orbit by close passages with other stars over the gigayears and thereby turned into interstellar wanderers, it’s likely that comets (similarly detached from other star systems in the galaxy) outnumber other classes of interstellar visitors (such as wandering planets) by millions or billions to one.
“There is nothing seen so far from the data to suggest anything alien about it, despite the claims of some publicity-seeking scientists who don’t even specialize in comet research.”
Ha! You are so right. Loeb is so over the top trying to get clicks and more angel investors. It is rather sad to see him so strenuously pick at the data to find aliens.
I am reminded of the Reagan:
“Worried that their boys had developed extreme personalities — one was a total pessimist, the other a total optimist — their parents took them to a psychiatrist.
First the psychiatrist treated the pessimist. Trying to brighten his outlook, the psychiatrist took him to a room piled to the ceiling with brand-new toys. But instead of yelping with delight, the little boy burst into tears. “What’s the matter?” the psychiatrist asked, baffled. “Don’t you want to play with any of the toys?” “Yes,” the little boy bawled, “but if I did I’d only break them.”
Next the psychiatrist treated the optimist. Trying to dampen his out look, the psychiatrist took him to a room piled to the ceiling with horse manure. But instead of wrinkling his nose in disgust, the optimist emitted just the yelp of delight the psychiatrist had been hoping to hear from his brother, the pessimist. Then he clambered to the top of the pile, dropped to his knees, and began gleefully digging out scoop after scoop with his bare hands. “What do you think you’re doing?” the psychiatrist asked, just as baffled by the optimist as he had been by the pessimist. “With all this manure,” the little boy replied, beaming, “there must be a pony in here somewhere!” “
I still want the Juno probe to at least try to get near it.
This thing might be so old to where chemical reactions might be kicked off–unlike younger comets.
If there is anything to allegations of it being “too bright,” it might just come down to something like foxfire.
I am thinking Borisov is what most interstellar objects will be like –and that we might just be really lucky that the first and third of these happen to be more interesting.
I think Oumuamua is a shard of rock (volcanic plug?) or something.
3/ATLAS may have passed through chemicals from another wrecked system…the older something is, the more things it can pick up just by passing through…think whale barnacles.
Hmm, what will Loeb say now?
Maybe: “Of course!, any civilization capable of building an interstellar probe is surely capable of disguising it as a comet”
“Nothing alien about it”
So how do you sensationalize it for clicks? Like putting lipstick on a pig. Find another object 100 times larger and glows like a chunk of radioactive stellar isotope.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyFHlHv7FNU
TESS’ observations
https://phys.org/news/2025-08-tess-3iatlas-months.html
Loeb gets a bad rap…. His papers always admit that the vast majority of the evidence points to a completely “natural” explanation for these extrastella visitors is by far the most likely one.
Where I respect him is that he is also not afraid to throw some unlikely ideas out there… Almost definitely the 3 interestella visitors we have welcomed in the past decade or so are remnants of other star systems… Massively interesting in their own right, but if……
Blue sky research is important, as are scientists willing to think outside the box… However unlikely, I am happy that big brains are contemplating we might be looking at ET.
How likely is it that any intelligent advanced life form that is able to travel to the earth from some other solar system would be traveling within our 3 known dimensions, time and constrained by the speed of light?
They choose to just tool around the universe between star systems and planets in 10,000 year increments?
I suspect not.
There are credible UFO / UAP recorded events and related stories throughout history that IMO would indicate that there is something that is traveling by some other means or exists within the envelope of the earth or our solar system that we are not aware of, cannot properly detect and identify or are unable to replicate at this moment in time.
Q: What evidence related to UFO’s / UAP’s is information and what is disinformation?
Information? https://youtu.be/q8pymWSKAPQ?si=hMCZRmJxYKkR0w0O
Disinformation? https://youtu.be/b8CzUPhqNxE?si=Zi6XDvRZtTEBYTO0
I tend to be of the mind that agrees more with the likes of Jaques Vallee on this subject: https://youtube.com/shorts/vPiu6-wGzdk?si=BOLJ0YaafME9lHq5
I know this is an anomalous third rail over the edge subject on BTB, but here it is all the same.
Information? Disinformation?
Elon: Aliens: “I think I’d know”.
https://youtube.com/shorts/TqWbMZIQAoo?si=Ygx5_wtVZv-LQZJI
You would think.
And yet there are some things still today that have no rational everyday explanation.
@ Cotour, if we ever get that interstellar micro probe laser propelled thing going, what will the occupants of proxima century think? “Obviously a bunch of fragments from a broken up astroid”…
Loeb has some crazy ideas, but I genuinely don’t think he’s fishing for clicks… He is just floating out there that we shouldn’t discount that there could be some kind of ET tech floating thru our system… It is easy to dismiss his ideas, but why not at least consider the possibility?
And @ Bob… Quote “There is nothing seen so far from the data to suggest anything alien about it” , I know what you mean, but every data suggests that it is very alien… Perhaps not alien intelligence, but very alien non the less.
Lee S: I disagree about the comet. The data from the comment is “alien” only in that is it a comet with some features different from all other comets, but this uniqueness is actually not unique at all. Every comet we have looked at with the same equipment has been equally unique. Think of the differences between humans. Each human is unique, but all are clearly human. It is so far the same with 3I/Atlas.
I also disagree about Loeb. He has made a career doing this, attracting big funding for questionable research. He is doing the same now, making absurd claims (based either on NO facts or in direct contradiction to the facts we have) in order to gin up funding for research.
Asking radical questions is great, but when you do it divorced from facts you are not a scientist, you are a charlatan.