One of the surprising anomalies of 3I/ATLAS is its exceedingly high fraction of deuterium, amounting to one deuterium (D) in 100 hydrogen (H) atoms in water (as reported here) and one deuterium in 30 hydrogen atoms in the organic molecule of methane (as reported here). The latter value of D/H fraction of 3.3% is a thousand times above the average cosmic value elsewhere in the Universe.

During the Manhattan Project, Edward Teller raised the speculative possibility that the fireball from an atomic bomb explosion might ignite the atmosphere by triggering a fusion reaction of nitrogen (14N) nuclei (as described here)…









