A new image shows that an interstellar comet is dramatically spewing ice and dust into space.
He kitecalled 3I/ATLAS, is sending a jet of material toward the sun as our nearest star heats part of its surface. The composite image shows 3I/ATLAS’ rocky, icy central core or nucleus as a large, black dot, along with a white glow – the comet’s coma, or atmosphere. The jet is marked in purple and takes off in the direction of the Sun, which is typical behavior for comets also in the solar system.
Astronomers notice received of the plane on October 15 on the Astronomer’s Telegram, an advertising service for the astronomy community with editor-in-chief Robert Rutledge, an associate professor at McGill University in Montreal.
The images of the plane were captured on August 2 and combine 159 exposures of 50 seconds each. It was taken with the two-meter Twin Telescope at the Teide Observatory in Tenerife, in the Canary Islands.
“This is business as usual,” Miquel Serra-Ricart, an astrophysicist and scientific director of the private research institution Light Bridges, which co-manages Teide, told our sister site LiveScience. in an email. Serra-Ricart was the person who posted the new images, which have not yet been peer-reviewed; He noted that the comet’s tail also points away from the Sun, which is typical for these icy objects.
Although comets heat up when they get close to the sun, they don’t heat up the same way everywhere. Areas facing the Sun heat up more quickly, and if there is a weaker area on the comet’s surface, sublimated gases beneath the surface can flare up, causing these Sun-facing jets.
Serra-Ricart estimated that the plane could be up to 10,000 kilometers (6,200 miles) from the surface of 3I/ATLAS, which is more than twice the equivalent distance in most of the United States. The jet is likely composed of carbon dioxide and dust particles, like what was stained by NASA James Webb Space Telescope back in August.
These jets may begin to unfold as the comet’s nucleus rotates. Part of the material will remain in a coma, while the rest will fall into the tail of the comet after the pressure of the Sun, which is known as solar wind – forces him there. The solar system comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE, which was visible to the naked eyeshowed precisely that type of behavior back in 2020 in Hubble space telescope images.
