Study Findings: Isotopic Evidence for a Cold and Distant Origin of 3I/ATLAS

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Credit: NASA

Nature abstract of study findings:

Interstellar objects provide the only directly observable samples of icy planetesimals formed around other stars, and can therefore provide insight into the diversity of physical and chemical conditions occurring during exoplanet formation. Here we report isotopic measurements of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, which reveal an elemental composition unlike any Solar System body. The water in 3I/ATLAS is enriched in deuterium, at a level of D/H = (0.98 ± 0.06)%, which is more than an order of magnitude higher than in known comets, while its range of 12C/13C ratios (141–191 for CO2 and 123–172 for CO) exceeds typical values found in the Solar System, as well as nearby interstellar clouds and protoplanetary disks. Such extreme isotopic signatures indicate formation at temperatures ≲ 30 K in a relatively metal-poor environment. When interpreted with respect to models for Galactic chemical evolution, the carbon isotopic composition implies that 3I/ATLAS may have accreted as long ago as 12 billion years, following a period of intense, early star formation. 3I/ATLAS thus represents a preserved fragment of an ancient planetary system.

Citation: Cordiner, M., Roth, N.X., Micheli, M. et al. Isotopic evidence for a cold and distant origin of 3I/ATLAS. Nature (2026).

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10771-6

Study-related stories:

Scientific American – “Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS is Almost as Old as the Universe Itself”

CBS News – “Interstellar Comet that Zoomed Past Earth Could Be Oldest and Coldest Object Ever Seen in Solar System, Astronomers Say”

Live Science – “’Interstellar Messenger’ 3I/ATLAS Could Be Nearly as Old as the Universe Itself, James Webb Telescope Observations Reveal”

Space Stories: A New Player in the Race for Mars, Swarming Exoplanet Seekers, and a Over-sized Pink Exoplanet

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Image (Credit): Martian dunes at Endurance Crater as viewed by NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity. (NASA/JPL/Cornell)

Here are some recent space-related stories.

—Techcrunch: “NASA Picks Eric Schmidt’s Rocket Company for Mars Mission, Setting Up a Race with SpaceX“

Relativity Space — a rocket maker acquired by former Google executive chair Eric Schmidt last year after stumbling on the path to orbit — might just beat SpaceX to Mars. On Tuesday, NASA said it hired the company to build a spacecraft to house a suite of scientific instruments, launch it into space, and fly it to Mars. The structure of the contract is akin to the deals that NASA made with SpaceX to fly cargo to the International Space Station, or Firefly Aerospace to put a lander on the moon. The government agency handles the science, while the private company provides low-cost infrastructure.

—Universe Today: “Astronomers Want to Build a Swarm of Telescopes to Find LIFE“

Current plans for flagship telescopes in the 2040s are focused on answering a simple question – are we alone? Our best telescopes to date, such as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have only given us tantalizing glimpses into the atmospheres or other worlds, but not enough to truly determine whether or not life as we know it exists there. Astronomers have been waiting for technology to catch up to their dreams of what is possible in terms of new types of telescopes, and recently the W.M. Keck Institute for Space Studies released a report detailing the Large Interferometer For Exoplanets (LIFE) mission, which they hope will help provide a definitive answer to that simple question.

—BBC Sky at Night: “The Pink Planet is So Weird, Astronomers Struggle to Define It. And They’ve Just Found It’s Covered in Salty Clouds“

There’s a pink planet, just a stone’s throw from Earth, that astronomers have been trying to decipher for over a decade. Known as the Pink Planet or, officially, GJ504b, this strange world orbits a Sun-like star 57 lightyears from Earth. Astronomers aren’t even sure if it’s a planet at all. About 25 times the mass of Jupiter, it’s so massive it’s on the boundary between giant planets and brown dwarfs (a type of failed star). But observations with the James Webb Space Telescope have revealed direct evidence for something rather strange at the Pink Planet: salty clouds.

Note: Here is the podcast version of this post.

Space Stories: ESA & China Are Smiling, Blue Origin Beats SpaceX to the Moon, and JWST Analyzes Exoplanet Atmosphere

Posted on by onespaceman2000

Here are some recent space-related stories.

—European Space Agency: “Smile Lifts Off on Quest to Reveal Earth’s Invisible Shield Against the Solar Wind“

The Smile spacecraft lifted off on a Vega-C rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana at 04:52 BST / 05:52 CEST (00:52 local time) on 19 May 2026. The launch marks the beginning of an ambitious mission to better understand solar storms, geomagnetic storms, and the science of space weather…Smile is a collaboration between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). It will reveal how Earth responds to the streams of particles and bursts of radiation from the Sun, using an X-ray camera to make the world’s first X-ray observations of Earth’s magnetic shield, and an ultraviolet camera to watch the resulting northern lights non-stop for 45 hours at a time.

—The Guardian: “Nasa Selects Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin for First of Three Uncrewed Lunar Missions“

Nasa announced on Tuesday ambitious plans for three uncrewed lunar missions this year to kickstart construction of a $20bn moon base, and said it had chosen the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, ahead of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, to conduct the first...[NASA’s Administrator] said the three missions planned for 2026 would be followed by “more than a dozen” more in the coming years to test systems and equipment. He said the highly successful Artemis II mission last month that sent four astronauts around the moon for the first time since 1972 had been both a catalyst and incentive to advance the moon base plan.

—Astrobiology: “Astronomers Observe Exoplanet Atmospheres With New Cloud-detecting Method“

Every morning, clouds roll in, and by evening, they have cleared off. This sounds like a weather forecast for a coastal city here on Earth — but it’s for WASP-94A b, a well-studied gas giant orbiting a star located nearly 700 light-years away. A new study published in the journal Science documents the first detection of repeating cloud cycles on a hot Jupiter exoplanet. The first author of the study is Sagnick Mukherjee, a 51 Pegasi b postdoctoral fellow at Arizona State University’s School of Earth and Space Exploration. Mukherjee is part of a research team that analyzed data from the James Webb Space Telescope targeting WASP-94 A b, a gas giant in the constellation Microscopium. The team discovered that the planet’s morning side is blanketed in clouds of magnesium silicate, the same mineral found in common rocks, while its evening side is under clear skies.

Note: Here is the podcast version of this post.

House Budget Looking Better for NASA

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: ABC’s Schoolhouse Rock

The Planetary Society has provided a nice summary of where the NASA funding battle is at this moment. Here is its latest summary of events:

  • The House budget bill that includes NASA funding just cleared a key hurdle, advancing out of the Appropriations Committee. This is the first funding bill for FY 2027 to be released and reach this stage, establishing congressional intent and rejecting the worst of the Office of Management and Budget’s proposed cuts to NASA.
  • The bill keeps NASA funding flat with the currently enacted budget, but reprioritizes funding levels across the agency, including a 17% cut to Science to offset increases elsewhere.
  • A number of science missions proposed for cancellation by the OMB see their funding protected by this bill, including OSIRIS-APEX, New Horizons, and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. New programs initiated by Administrator Isaacman that were absent from the OMB proposal, like Space Reactor-1 Freedom, also see their first dedicated mention in the proposal.
  • The full House still needs to vote on this, and the Senate is expected to release its own proposal within weeks. Congress will then work to develop full-year funding, in anticipation of the start of FY 2027 on Oct. 1, but will likely require a short-term funding patch, which comes with its own hurdles.

I recommend you read the entire statement, House Appropriators Advance Key NASA Funding Bill, to fully understand the rigors of this Hill battle. Fortunately, both the House and Senate continue to be supportive of NASA’s work and Administrator Isaacman’s new direction for Artemis. It helps to have someone full time at the helm of the agency.

I was especially pleased to read that missions such as New Horizons and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory are being saved and key programs like the James Webb Space Telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope are no longer facing drastic cuts. It is unfortunate that the White House was so willing to destroy generations of space-related work – what have been called the crown jewels of our space program.

The budget battle is not over, but we are seeing that when good legislators push back, good things can happen.

Pic of the Week: Spiral Arm of Galaxy M51

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): View of an arm of the Messier 51 galaxy from both JWST and the Hubble Space Telescop. (ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, A. Pedrini, A. Adamo (Stockholm University) and the FEAST JWST team)

This week’s image is from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and Hubble Space Telescope, which together scanned about 9,000 star clusters in the four galaxies. What you are looking at above comes from the spiral arm of one of the galaxies – Messier 51 (M51).

Here is a description from the European Space Agency (ESA) regarding what you are seeing in the image:

A large, long portion of one of the spiral arms in galaxy M51. Red-orange, clumpy filaments of gas and dust that stretch in a chain from left to right comprise the arm. Shining cyan bubbles light up parts of the gas clouds from within, and gaps expose bright star clusters in these bubbles as glowing white dots. The whole image is dotted with small stars. A faint blue glow around the arm colours the otherwise dark background.