The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has observed the interstellar visitor 3I/ATLAS for the first time. The powerful space telescope trained its infrared vision and its Near-Infrared Spectrograph instrument (NIRspec) on the comet on Aug. 6, 2025.

Discovered on July 1 by the ATLAS (Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System) survey telescope, 3I/ATLAS is just the third-ever object found drifting through our solar system that is believed to have originated from around another star. The other two interstellar intruders were 1I/'Oumuamua, discovered in 2017, and 2I/Borisov, detected in 2019.

The JWST follows in the footsteps of the Hubble Space Telescope and the SPHEREx Observatory, both of which have already observed 3I/ATLAS as it passes through the solar system. This investigation aim

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