DistantNews
Support us
Interstellar Comet is Twice as Old as the Sun
🇩🇪 Germany /Health & Science

Interstellar Comet is Twice as Old as the Sun

From Die Zeit · () German

Translated from German, summarized and contextualized by DistantNews.

At a glance

News From a news agency Context piece
  • Comet 3I/ATLAS, discovered a year ago, is twice as old as the Sun, originating from a planetary system formed long before our own.
  • Observations from the James Webb Space Telescope and the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope confirm its ancient origin.
  • The comet's hyperbolic trajectory indicates it is interstellar, offering scientists a unique opportunity to study the composition of an alien planetary system.

The comet 3I/ATLAS, discovered just a year ago, has been found to be twice the age of our Sun. Scientific observations suggest it originated from a planetary system that formed significantly earlier than our own solar system.

Independent analyses using data from the James Webb Space Telescope and the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile have confirmed the comet's ancient origins. Scientists believe 3I/ATLAS formed in the vicinity of a young star belonging to an earlier stellar generation.

"3I/ATLAS offers us the exciting possibility to study the composition of another planetary system," said Rosemary Dorsay of the University of Helsinki. "Specifically, one that formed long before our Sun and our solar system."

Comets are remnants from the formation of planetary systems, composed of rock, ice, and frozen gases. While comets in our solar system typically orbit the Sun in distant, cooler regions, they can be perturbed into closer, elliptical paths. However, 3I/ATLAS follows a hyperbolic trajectory, an open path that indicates it did not originate from our solar system but rather traveled from interstellar space.

3I/ATLAS offers us the exciting possibility to study the composition of another planetary system, and indeed one that formed long before our Sun and our solar system.

— Rosemary DorsayRosemary Dorsay of the University of Helsinki explained the significance of the comet's discovery.
DistantNews Editorial

Originally published by Die Zeit in German. Translated, summarized, and contextualized by our editorial team with added local perspective. Read our editorial standards.

More Stories

From Our Blog