Amit Kshatriya stated firmly:
“It behaves like a comet, and all evidence points to it being a comet. It just happens to come from outside our solar system.”
Fox added humorously:
“We certainly haven’t seen any technosignatures.”
The object’s exotic nature, however, comes not from extraterrestrial engineering but from the fact that it was formed in a distant star system billions of years ago.
Infrared Revelations: Water, CO₂, and More
Data from JWST and SPHEREx revealed clues to the comet’s composition. Scientists detected abundant carbon dioxide, water ice, and thermal structures that differ sharply from typical solar system comets.
Domagal-Goldman explained:
“This is a rare chance to compare materials from another solar system to those from our own.”
Even more intriguing was the detection of nickel vapor, especially at distances too cold for such material to be released.
