The Manhattan-sized interstellar object rocketing through Earth’s inner solar system is covered by a cloud of carbon dioxide, a characteristic that shocked experts, according to an analysis of brand new images.

Both the James Webb Space Telescope and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory observatory SPHEREx snapped new images of 3I/ATLAS this week, almost two months after it was first spotted in the skies above Chile. 3

3I/ATLAS glows red in the new images with a seemingly threatening aura, though most scientists believe the object to be merely a 12-mile-wide interstellar comet.

The snaps showed that 3I/ATLAS is “outgassing” as it approaches the Sun, which was expected. However, the object is dumping out a conspicuous amount of carbon dioxide and a surprisingly small amount of water and

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