Latest Developments
- Astronomers have captured the first detailed maps of metal gases escaping from the third interstellar visitor ever detected passing through our solar system, and the patterns reveal clues about conditions around distant alien stars.
- Nickel vapor hugs much closer to the object’s icy core than other gases do—spreading only 594 kilometers out compared to 841 kilometers for cyanide—suggesting the metal comes from fragile molecules that shatter almost instantly in sunlight.
- The interstellar object reaches its closest point to the Sun in just days, giving scientists their last best chance to study this cosmic traveler before it speeds back into the darkness between stars, never to return.
USA HERALD – On August 24, 2025, researchers aimed one of the world’s most powerful telescopes at a fuzzy green dot moving through space. That dot is 3I/ATLAS—an object that didn’t form in our solar system but is just passing through from somewhere else in our galaxy.
Using the Keck II telescope in Hawaii, the team spent 15 minutes collecting light from 3I/ATLAS when it was about 257 million miles from the Sun (roughly 2.75 times Earth’s distance from the Sun). The results appear in a study published October 15, 2025, led by W.B. Hoogendam from the University of Hawaii.
What makes this observation special is the telescope’s ability to act like thousands of cameras at once, capturing not just what chemicals are present but exactly where they’re located around the object. Think of it like using a heat-sensing camera to see which parts of a campfire are hottest—except here, scientists are mapping which gases appear where.
The team confirmed earlier reports that 3I/ATLAS is releasing both cyanide gas (the poison you’ve heard about in murder mysteries) and nickel vapor (yes, the same metal in coins). What’s new is the discovery that nickel stays much closer to the object’s center than cyanide does.
