Mysterious interstellar object 3I/ATLAS reached its perihelion, or its closest point to the Sun, earlier this year, shedding copious amounts of ice and dust in the process. It’s such a violent process, astronomers have found that the surface of 3I/ATLAS’ nucleus could be dotted with erupting “ice volcanoes,” as Live Science reports. They posit that could make the visitor surprisingly similar to trans-Neptunian objects, faint chunks of rock and ice that form in the Kuiper Belt beyond Neptune’s orbit. Studying interstellar objects traveling through the solar system is an exceedingly rare opportunity that we shouldn’t take for granted. More on 3I/ATLAS: The Mysterious Interstellar Object Appears to Be Pulsing in a “Heartbeat Pattern”