'Like nothing we've seen before': James Webb telescope spies a mysterious asteroid-comet hybrid lurking past Jupiter

Artistic representation of an active centaur like Chiron. The different colors in the coma indicate varying compositions of gas, ice, and dust.

New James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) findings are giving scientists a fresh look at an "oddball" space rock that has features similar to both comets and asteroids.

Astronomers observing the hybrid, known as (2060) Chiron, detected frozen carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide in its icy nucleus, as well as carbon dioxide and methane in the surrounding gas cloud. The findings could help scientists better understand comets and centaurs — so named because they have properties of both asteroids and comets — and could offer a peek at the conditions in the early solar system.