Scientists are trying to learn as much as they can about our third ever discovered interstellar visitor, 3I/ATLAS, and the latest clues about the comet revealed that it's a bit of an oddball – at least chemically.

Comet 3I/ATLAS was first spotted on July 1 by the NASA -funded Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) in Chile. Only two previous interstellar objects have been tracked and documented through our solar system, Oumuamua in 2017 and 2I/Borisov in 2019, but now astronomers have new tools, including the James Webb Space Telescope.

A group of international researchers used Webb's NIRSpec instrument to study the infrared spectroscopy of 3I/ATLAS and found something interesting in the vapor cloud surrounding its core, known as a coma.

ASTRONOMERS SPOT RARE INTERSTELLAR

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