Interstellar Object 3I-Atlas Is Ejecting Water Like A Firehose
Posted by freedomforall 1 day, 11 hours ago to Science
Excerpt:
"A new analysis of our solar system’s interstellar interloper, 3I/ATLAS, reveals that it’s spewing huge amounts of water — and astronomers can’t immediately explain why.
The object, which is widely believed to be comet, showed strong ultraviolet emissions that are unmistakable telltales of hydroxyl gas (OH), a byproduct of water, when astronomers imaged it with NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift space telescope before it disappeared behind the Sun. The emissions could only be spotted from space because the ultraviolet light would get absorbed in the atmosphere.
Their findings, detailed in a new study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, argue that the presence of all this OH indicates the comet is ejecting water vapor at a torrential rate of about 88 pounds per second — around the same rate as a fire hose running at full blast, according to a press release about the findings.
The most extraordinary thing is that this was spotted happening pretty far from the Sun, at a heliocentric distance of about three astronomical units (AU) away, or three times the distance between the Earth and our star. Typically, comets stray much closer to the Sun before the water ice in their core, called a nucleus, begins to sublimate, or instantly transform from a solid to a gas. Something else must be driving all the water dumping from 3I/ATLAS — which also implies, tantalizingly, that the comet must harbor considerable stores of water for this process to keep going."
"A new analysis of our solar system’s interstellar interloper, 3I/ATLAS, reveals that it’s spewing huge amounts of water — and astronomers can’t immediately explain why.
The object, which is widely believed to be comet, showed strong ultraviolet emissions that are unmistakable telltales of hydroxyl gas (OH), a byproduct of water, when astronomers imaged it with NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift space telescope before it disappeared behind the Sun. The emissions could only be spotted from space because the ultraviolet light would get absorbed in the atmosphere.
Their findings, detailed in a new study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, argue that the presence of all this OH indicates the comet is ejecting water vapor at a torrential rate of about 88 pounds per second — around the same rate as a fire hose running at full blast, according to a press release about the findings.
The most extraordinary thing is that this was spotted happening pretty far from the Sun, at a heliocentric distance of about three astronomical units (AU) away, or three times the distance between the Earth and our star. Typically, comets stray much closer to the Sun before the water ice in their core, called a nucleus, begins to sublimate, or instantly transform from a solid to a gas. Something else must be driving all the water dumping from 3I/ATLAS — which also implies, tantalizingly, that the comet must harbor considerable stores of water for this process to keep going."
