It has now been just over a year since the comet 3I/ATLAS first captured the world's attention as the third known object to fly through our solar system from beyond. Astronomers are still learning new things about where exactly it came from.
For the first time ever, they've been able to study charged particles in the tail of the interstellar comet. This has told them that 3I/ATLAS contains more nitrogen than the typical comet from our own solar system — revealing a tantalizing clue about how the strange comet formed.
"Finding that it's so rich in nitrogen tells us it likely formed in extremely cold conditions, far from its home star," Lea Ferellec, a research fellow at Northumbria University, said in a statement.
English (US)