{"id":229475,"date":"2026-01-21T01:43:38","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T07:43:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/01\/spherex-imaging-reveals-increased-sublimation-activity-on-3i-atlas"},"modified":"2026-01-21T01:43:38","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T07:43:38","slug":"spherex-imaging-reveals-increased-sublimation-activity-on-3i-atlas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/01\/spherex-imaging-reveals-increased-sublimation-activity-on-3i-atlas","title":{"rendered":"SPHEREx imaging reveals increased sublimation activity on 3I\/ATLAS"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/spherex-imaging-reveals-increased-sublimation-activity-on-3i-atlas2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The interstellar object, 3I\/ATLAS, was first discovered in July 2025, and made its closest approach to the sun (perihelion) in late October. New observations of 3I\/ATLAS were taken in December from the SPHEREx observatory\u2014a near-infrared space observatory used for spectrophotometry. The analysis of these observations was recently discussed by a team of scientists in a <a href=\"https:\/\/arxiv.org\/abs\/2601.06759\" target=\"_blank\">paper<\/a> on <i>arXiv<\/i>, and reveals some dramatic differences from the data taken before 3I\/ATLAS reached perihelion.<\/p>\n<p>SPHEREx first analyzed spectrographic data from 3I\/ATLAS in August, shortly after its discovery. At the time, the interstellar object was moving inward, getting closer to the sun, but still between Jupiter and Mars.<\/p>\n<p>At this time, spectrographic analysis showed \u201cbarely detectable\u201d H<sub>2<\/sub>O-gas, according to the study authors, along with a CO<sub>2<\/sub> coma. The CO<sub>2<\/sub> gas production was estimated in a <a href=\"https:\/\/iopscience.iop.org\/article\/10.3847\/2515-5172\/ae0293\" target=\"_blank\">prior study<\/a> to be about 9.4 \u00d7 10<sup>26<\/sup> molecules\/sec, with upper limits for H<sub>2<\/sub>O and CO being much lower. Carbon-based organic compounds (collectively referred to as C-H), like methanol (CH<sub>3<\/sub>OH), formaldehyde (H<sub>2<\/sub>CO), methane (CH<sub>4<\/sub>), and ethane (C<sub>2<\/sub>H<sub>6<\/sub>) were not detectable at the time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The interstellar object, 3I\/ATLAS, was first discovered in July 2025, and made its closest approach to the sun (perihelion) in late October. New observations of 3I\/ATLAS were taken in December from the SPHEREx observatory\u2014a near-infrared space observatory used for spectrophotometry. The analysis of these observations was recently discussed by a team of scientists in a [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-229475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229475\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}