Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, M. Cordiner (CUA) Image Processing: A. Pagan (STScI)

The NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph) instrument on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope 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.

Provider: Space Telescope Science Institute

Image Source: /image/stsci/2026-118a

Curator: STScI

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