Interstellar comet likely far older than Solar System: astronomers

Key Points:

• The interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, which passed near the Sun last year, could be up to 12 billion years old, nearly three times older than our Solar System, making it potentially the oldest object observed within our cosmic neighborhood.
• Observations from the James Webb Space Telescope and the ALMA observatory revealed that 3I/ATLAS has a unique chemical composition, including about 30 times more deuterium than typical Solar System comets, indicating it formed in an extremely cold environment around minus 243 degrees Celsius.
• The comet likely originated from a region close to star formation during the "cosmic noon" period about 10 billion years ago and has traveled vast trajectories through the Milky Way for billions of years, untethered to any star.
• Despite initial speculation about alien origins, NASA and SETI have found no evidence of extraterrestrial technology on 3I/ATLAS, confirming it as a natural astrophysical object.
• Astronomers view the study of 3I/ATLAS as a breakthrough in understanding interstellar objects, anticipating many more discoveries with advanced observatories like the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in the near future.