@mlb62 saidThe problem with that hypothesis is it is shedding water like a demon. If it was an alien craft they would be in serious doo doo losing all that water, which would be fuel when the O and H are separated out and breathing if they indeed would need O2 to breath but there is really no way an alien ship would want to be shedding tons of water every hour. As a camouflage it sucks because now it is even easier to see. Any change in it's trajectory can be answered by unbalanced force being applied to the body because of the water streaming off that comet.
Harvard Prof. Dr. Avi Loeb has confirmed the 3I/Atlas object has only 2 % chance of being a natural object....like a comet. Loeb has contacted NASA advising they send a message of peace !! Many astronomers have looked thru their telescopes and confirmed it is being piloted ! Loeb advises all world leaders to plan some sort of actions against this alien craft !!
@mlb62 saidHe said the same thing about Oumuamua in 2017. He should probably be fired and/or institutionalized.
Harvard Prof. Dr. Avi Loeb has confirmed the 3I/Atlas object has only 2 % chance of being a natural object....like a comet. Loeb has contacted NASA advising they send a message of peace !! Many astronomers have looked thru their telescopes and confirmed it is being piloted ! Loeb advises all world leaders to plan some sort of actions against this alien craft !!
@mlb62 saidYup, it's the Great-AUK-folk returning. And they're mad.
Comet 3I/Atlas could be hostile aliens....says Harvard's Avi Loeb / the comet is definitely being piloted !! We have only 1 year before it arrives on Earth. They predict Around August 2026...even traveling at 130,000 mph. there is NO object in our solar system capable of going that fast...which proves it has some sort of propulsion.. I have almost completed a very deep bomb shelter !!
https://www.britannica.com/list/6-animals-we-ate-into-extinction
@moonbus saidJust his statement about something flying through the solar system so fast just could not exist unless it was a manned craft with propulsion. That just proves he doesn't understand in the least the amount of energy that can goose a planet to galactic escape velocity by interactions with black holes, slinging it around and throwing it out or even a star coming into a solar system slinging planets left and right.
Yup, it's the Great-AUK-folk returning. And they're mad.
https://www.britannica.com/list/6-animals-we-ate-into-extinction
No, it couldn't POSSIBLY be any of those, an object throwing tons of water off its back, total evidence of a manned craft, eh.
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@sonhouse saidThere is no telling how many stars it has been sling-shotting around on its long journey here. It could be hundreds of millions of years old, by now. Wouldn't it be grand if we could intercept it, land a probe on it, recover a sample? Probably not feasible, at the speed it is going. Still, we might be able to recover some debris from its tail.
Just his statement about something flying through the solar system so fast just could not exist unless it was a manned craft with propulsion. That just proves he doesn't understand in the least the amount of energy that can goose a planet to galactic escape velocity by interactions with black holes, slinging it around and throwing it out or even a star coming into a solar sy ...[text shortened]... e any of those, an object throwing tons of water off its back, total evidence of a manned craft, eh.
@moonbus saidI think they are talking about repurposing a craft than is already in Jovian space to crank up the propulsion and get it there in time to get close ups. News at 11.
There is no telling how many stars it has been sling-shotting around on its long journey here. It could be hundreds of millions of years old, by now. Wouldn't it be grand if we could intercept it, land a probe on it, recover a sample? Probably not feasible, at the speed it is going. Still, we might be able to recover some debris from its tail.
@sonhouse saidIt would make sense to have a fleet of probes in Martian or Jovian space, for early detection/interception of rogue asteroids and interstellar interlopers. This would be a good opportunity for planetary space-agencies cooperation.
I think they are talking about repurposing a craft than is already in Jovian space to crank up the propulsion and get it there in time to get close ups. News at 11.
@moonbus saidThere would have to be political will for the launch of such probes. Now NASA has lost thousands of its top scientists and a boob is running NASA right now.
It would make sense to have a fleet of probes in Martian or Jovian space, for early detection/interception of rogue asteroids and interstellar interlopers. This would be a good opportunity for planetary space-agencies cooperation.
I think we will be calling it the former NASA before long.
One of the best jobs I ever had was working Apollo at Goddard and I guess all that is in the past now, only showboating launches now.
@Ponderable saidThat coma puts a rest to the idea it is a spaceship unless it is somehow ok for such a craft to be dumping ton after ton of useable material in the craft.
for those interested in the science of the visitor, there are some recent results by SPHEREX:
https://spherex.caltech.edu/news/3i-atlas-co2-coma
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@Ponderable saidThe fact the coma didn't really start till it got closer to the sun, showing ice and such melting, forming a mist around the comet.
https://noirlab.edu/public/news/noirlab2525/
and a more detialed discussion of the coma can be found here:
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/ae08a7
It tells me that should be the end of these idiots who keep saying it is an interstellar probe because it would be very wasteful say if it were 'manned' where one would think they would need to conserve useful mass and they way it comes of basically in all direction shows it cannot provide thrust or maneuverability.
Since to make useful propulsion for steering or change in velocity the ejecta would have to come out at the same angle as if it were shot out of a cannon. I would think a probe would not want to advertise itself and the way there is this coma also suggests as a data gathering probe, you would not see much past all the water mist blowing out the craft.
Its funny, the last one passing through, people thought it must be a spacecraft because it was long and narrow. I guess interstellar spacecraft HAS to be long and skinny.
Can't POSSIBLY be spherical shaped could it? I mean, the interstellar dust and such can blow apart a spacecraft if you are going .999999 c. Unless you had magnetic shields and such.
People want SO BAD to find aliens. Even hostile ones. ANYONE ELSE saying we are not just an infinitesimally tiny blue dot on a near infinite universe and the universe we can see with telescopes may not even be the only one which is enough to give ANYONE headaches just thinking how huge it all is.
And the fact it was a comet, 31/Atlas, and nothing more.
AND it was NOT going .9c or anything close more like 130,000 miles per hour or about 36 miles per second not exactly tearing through space. 36 MPS is faster than the escape velocity of the solar system, which clocks in at 26 miles per second so Atlas will keep on going probably forever unless it whacks into something.
I think one possible good outcome is that 3I/Atlas gets close enough for us to realize: "Oh, yeah -- that's artificial, all right" and that it keeps going on with no chance of our catching up with it.
On my side, I do tire of news reports involving Avi Loeb, although I do think he means well.
As for hostile aliens: I don't believe they would arrive in physical ships, because I think it unlikely they could achieve that level of distance-crossing tech without also developing life-sustaining and life-improving tech as well as some parallel spiritual development.
As a teenager in the 1970s, I remember that some expected developments along asymptotic curves regarding both spirituality and technology, and wondered which would outpace the other (in retrospect, I think there might have been some idealistic and speculative musing involved at the time, and just considered in itself -- nothing to do with where we find ourselves now).
@Arkturos saidspeculation is all well and good but ALL the available evidence says it is natural. Getting close to the sun and spewing water and ice and CO2 just like a comet.
I think one possible good outcome is that 3I/Atlas gets close enough for us to realize: "Oh, yeah -- that's artificial, all right" and that it keeps going on with no chance of our catching up with it.
On my side, I do tire of news reports involving Avi Loeb, although I do think he means well.
As for hostile aliens: I don't believe they would arrive in physical ships, b ...[text shortened]... olved at the time, and just considered in itself -- nothing to do with where we find ourselves now).
100% natural.
Think about it. So you are part of a very advanced civilization with a spacecraft gliding into our system, but not getting any closer to Earth than the orbit of Mars and a spacecraft spewing water and gasses like it is doing would be self defeating for an interstellar craft, one thing for sure a real craft would want is to NOT be spewing out its own material resources which would be literally impossible to replace when they are flying through our system at 130 thousand miles an hour, and clearly an interstellar visitor would want to replenish materials needed for life to survive, like for humans, run out of water in interstellar space, you die.
All that said just goes to show you there is NOTHING artificial about Atlas.
There are a BUNCH of telescopes, probes and such watching Atlas really close and converging on Atlas so in the coming weeks we may know more about this visitor.
@Arkturos saidAs sonhouse pointed out the sheer mass loss by the comet indicates that it is at least not steered by any form of discernible intelligence. One would expect any starship commander to keep mass lsoss at a minimum.
I think one possible good outcome is that 3I/Atlas gets close enough for us to realize: "Oh, yeah -- that's artificial, all right" and that it keeps going on with no chance of our catching up with it.
On my side, I do tire of news reports involving Avi Loeb, although I do think he means well.
As for hostile aliens: I don't believe they would arrive in physical ships, b ...[text shortened]... olved at the time, and just considered in itself -- nothing to do with where we find ourselves now).
IF mass was to be used then in a directed way, e.g. for accelerating/deccelerating.
If we have anything "artificial" won't be established at all. Since the observations won't be good enough. I expect the comet to go through their aphelion soon and then vanish into deep space.
As for "aliens" visiting: It has to be assumed that they also would use electromagnetic radiation (if they have made a similar technological evolution as we did. Even if they are much mor advanced and found some "sub-Eta-Wave" they would go into contact with our technology.
The Seti projevct more or less established no regular source of artifially modulated electromagnetic raditaion. I assume there is nobody out there in "striking" distance of a few hundred lightyears.