Martin Cordiner

Martin Cordiner is an astrochemist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. He served as lead scientist on the JWST NIRSpec isotopic study of 3i-atlas published in Nature on June 22, 2026.

Key work

• Led the JWST NIRSpec observation campaign of 3i-atlas as it departed the Solar System
• Co-authored “Isotopic evidence for a cold and distant origin of 3I/ATLAS” (Nature, June 2026)
• Primary finding: unusually low carbon-13/carbon-12 ratio and ~30× deuterium enrichment, suggesting an origin age up to ~12 billion years ago (“cosmic noon”)

Also a co-author on cyrielle-opitom’s subsequent ESO VLT/UVES carbon+nitrogen isotope paper (Nature Astronomy, July 2026), a cross-team collaboration corroborating his own JWST findings.

Sources

• src-3i-atlas-jwst-isotopic-age-2026-06
• src-3i-atlas-nasa-webb-ancient-2026-06 — official NASA Science write-up; adds ESO VLT companion study by cyrielle-opitom and Milam’s full “only one place in the vast cosmos” quote
• src-3i-atlas-nitrogen-isotope-eso-2026-07 — ESO (Jul 6 2026): Opitom-led paper on which Cordiner is a co-author