Webb detected methane on 3I/ATLAS after the interstellar comet swept past the Sun in 2025—the first methane ever found on a visitor from another star system. Its methane was unusually abundant, while extraordinary isotopic signatures indicate it formed below 30 kelvin in an environment far colder than the one that produced our Solar System.
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When interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS rounded the Sun in 2025, the heating did more than brighten a visitor from another planetary system. It exposed layers of ice whose gases carried several different memories: methane released from beneath a depleted surface, water assembled in extreme cold and carbon shaped in a part of the Milky Way chemically unlike our own neighborhood.
Webb read those memories in separate observations and separate studies. A peer-reviewed methane paper used the telescope’
Webb read those memories in separate observations and separate studies. A peer-reviewed methane paper used the telescope’
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