An extraordinary visitor from beyond our solar system, the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, is baffling scientists as it streams out carbon-rich chemical compounds at a rate rarely seen in our own cosmic backyard. What makes this icy relic truly remarkable is the sheer amount of methanol it's belching out—a key ingredient for prebiotic chemistry and a compound never before detected in another interstellar object.
This is only the third time we've observed an object from another star system passing through our solar neighbourhood, following the mysterious 1I/'Oumuamua in 2017 and 2I/Borisov in 2019, and 3I/ATLAS is proving to be unlike any native comet we know.
