콜로퀴움
A New View of Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS with SPHEREx 2026-09-01
- Speaker : 박윤수 (한국천문연구원)
- Date : 2026-09-02 16:00 ~ 17:30
- Location : 장영실홀 331-2호
- Host : 문홍규
3I/ATLAS, the third known interstellar object, was discovered in July 2025. SPHEREx began science operations in May 2025 and quickly initiated special observations prior to 3I’s perihelion. These August 2025 observations led to the first detection of an extended CO2 gas coma (4.25 um; Lisse, Bach et al. 2025 RNAAS, 2026b ApJL), about one week before independent JWST results (Cordiner et al. 2025 ApJL). The initially low CO/CO2 gas ratio, among the lowest observed in comets, reversed dramatically after perihelion, with the emergence of a large CO gas coma (Lisse, Bach et al. 2026a RNAAS, 2026c ApJL in prep.). This behavior is consistent with significant water production (Combi et al. 2026, ApJL), which likely led to excavation of several meters of surface material and exposure of fresh volatile ices. Optical to NIR polarimetry of the dust coma (Choi et al. 2026, ApJL) shows a polarization phase curve unlike any solar system object, but with wavelength dependence similar to solar system comets, suggesting a distinct bulk composition but similar dust microstructure. The CN emission onset was detected right after the 2025 Aug SPHEREx observations (Paek et al. 2026 ApJ), consistent with SPHEREx's initial results. A new dust ejection simulation using SPHEREx dust continuum is consistent with anti-solar large-grain ejection (Bach et al. ApJL in prep.), which aligns with innermost coma images from JWST (Cordiner et al. 2026 Nature). Together, these results indicate that 3I is compositionally alien yet structurally familiar. I will present recent results and discuss implications for interstellar object science.
