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LiveScience
LiveScience
Patrick Pester

Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS is erupting in 'ice volcanoes', new images suggest

3I Atlas Comet 3I 3IAtlas Sun Comet 3IATLAS
Comet 3I/ATLAS appears to have spiral jets shooting off its surface, which the authors of a new preprint interpret as a type of cryovolcanism. (Image credit: Josep M. Trigo-Rodríguez/B06 Montseny Observatory)

The interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS could be covered in erupting "ice volcanoes," new observations suggest.

Researchers found evidence that as the comet approached the sun, a series of cryovolcanoes (nicknamed "ice volcanoes") erupted on its surface. The activation of these icy jets can be explained by what the strange comet is made of, according to a study posted Nov. 24 to the preprint server arXiv.

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