Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS (NIRSpec IFU)

Webb’s NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph) instrument can map specific chemical and molecular signatures, as seen here in its three images of comet 3I/ATLAS, each highlighting a part of the comet’s contents.

Researchers use NIRSpec’s Integral Field Unit, which provides a spectrum of every image pixel, to dive deeper into the details of cosmic objects than they can with the telescope’s imaging instruments alone. This is crucial for a rare object like 3I/ATLAS, which is only the third comet from outside the Solar System ever studied, and the first to be observed by an instrument capable of capturing as much detail as NIRSpec. With NIRSpec’s data, researchers can build a picture of where the comet may have come from and what its home system was like and then compare that to familiar conditions in the Solar System.

[Image description: Comparison of three telescope images side by side. They are roughly spherical but pixelated, with more intense colour saturation in the centre. From left to right: smallest sphere is blue and labeled H2O, orange is larger and labeled CO2, and red is largest and labeled CO. A scale bar at the lower left is labeled 1300 km/1 arcsecond and is about one fourth of each of the three images. A compass at the lower right shows north pointing up to 12 o’clock, east pointing left to 9 o’clock, and a fainter arrow labeled to Sun pointing down to 8 o’clock.]