Scientists Receive Interesting Signal From Mysterious Interstellar Object

"3I/ATLAS, which is widely believed to be a comet, has been soaring through the solar system at a breakneck speed, reaching its perihelion, or closest point to the Sun, on October 29. Days earlier, it reached its solar conjunction relative to Earth, or when the Sun was perfectly in line between us and the mysterious object, temporarily blocking it from view."

"On October 24, astronomers at the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory used the MeerKAT radio telescope to once again probe the rare visitor. Two previous attempts in September proved fruitless - but the third time was the charm. The team "detected radio absorption lines by hydroxyl radicals," which are produced when water molecules are broken down by sunlight, in what Harvard astronomer and passionate 3I/ATLAS tracker Avi Loeb declared in a blog post to be the "first radio detection of 3I/ATLAS.""

Interstellar object 3I/ATLAS reemerged from behind the Sun after a solar conjunction and reached perihelion on October 29. On October 24, the MeerKAT radio telescope at the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory observed the object. After two unsuccessful September attempts, the team detected radio absorption lines from hydroxyl radicals, a photodissociation product of water. Previous James Webb Space Telescope observations suggested a CO2-rich composition with only trace water, while ultraviolet data from the Swift Observatory had already shown hydroxyl gas. The combined hydroxyl detections indicate significant water outgassing and support a cometary, interstellar origin for 3I/ATLAS.

Read at Futurism