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The Volatile Inventory of 3I/ATLAS as Seen with JWST/MIRI

  • Authors: Matthew Belyakov, Ian Wong, Bryce T. Bolin, M. Ryleigh Davis, Steven J. Bromley, Carey M. Lisse, Michael E. Brown

Matthew Belyakov et al 2026 The Astrophysical Journal Letters 1001 .

  • Provider: AAS Journals

Caption: Figure 1.

Top: median-stacked images derived from the fully calibrated Channel 2 data cubes for the six successful JWST/MIRI observations of 3I. A logarithmic stretch has been applied to accentuate the extended dust coma. The sunward and target velocity directions are indicated. The panels are labeled with the corresponding date and spectral grating setting. The first three observations suffered from poor pointing, due to an uncertain ephemeris. There is low-level striping due to numerical artifacts from the IFU data-cube building process. Bottom: spectra of 3I extracted using a 1″ diameter circular aperture. Observations 2, 4, and 6 (blue) are combined into a single spectrum, by normalizing individual segments to align across their overlapping wavelengths. The spectra from Observations 13 and 15 (orange) are unaltered, illustrating the significant decrease in flux as the comet passed from a heliocentric distance of 2.20 to 2.54 au. The main H2O, CO2, CH4, and Ni fluorescence features are marked. The inset panel provides a zoomed-in view of the CO2 primary and hot bands.

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