In a preprint paper describing their investigation of 3I/ATLAS, a team of astronomers that observed the comet with the JWST explains that studying comets like this from other star systems helps to study what conditions were like in those systems as they were forming. Those results can then be compared to what scientists have learned about the conditions around the sun 4.6 billion years ago, when the planets, asteroids, and comets of the solar system were forming.

When comets approach the sun and are warmed by its heat, frozen materials within them are transformed from solids straight into gases. This results in gases escaping, a process called "outgassing," creating the characteristic tail and halo, or "coma," of a comet.

As expected, 3I/ATLAS is outgassing as it approaches the sun, and astronomers have used the JWST and its NIRSpec instrument to identify carbon dioxide, water, water ice, carbon monoxide, and the smelly gas carbonyl sulfide in its coma.

What wasn't expected, however, was the highest ratio of carbon dioxide to water ever observed in a comet. This could reveal more about the conditions in which 3I/ATLAS formed.