The arrival of a visitor from beyond our solar system is a cosmic event of staggering rarity, yet it has just happened for only the third time in human history. Imagine a silent, billion-year journey through the darkness between stars, finally ending in a brief, luminous flyby that offers astronomers a priceless, fleeting glimpse into the composition of alien worlds.
This is the extraordinary reality of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, an icy comet that is currently hurtling away from the sun, but not before allowing the world's most advanced observatories to scrutinise its highly unusual chemical makeup.
