Physics and astronomy thread (3 Viewers)

[Runkle]

Ruh Roh Raggy. The newest interstellar comet (or "comet?") has shown signs of non-gravitational acceleration and an unexplained color change.

Interstellar Object 3I/ATLAS Changed Color Again, And Shows Signs Of Non-Gravitational Acceleration

Behind the Sun, the comet appears to show signs of acceleration beyond what is expected by gravity. And for reasons not yet clear, it appears to have changed color.

www.iflscience.com

I hope they're nice when they land. Klaatu barada nikto, good buddies.

This stuff is super fascinating to me. I just hate there are so many clickbait titles and straight up false stories surrounding 3I/Atlas out there. It makes it difficult to find real information when NASA takes their sweet time posting news.

I couldn't agree more. This is the trend with absolutely everything in society and culture and it bugs the crap out of me.

Anyway, I don't think non gravitational acceleration is all that unusual for comets. As the comet approaches the sun, the ices sublimes and gasses are expelled created a source of thrust. I am not well versed on 3I/ATLAS, but I believe I read that the unusual thing here is the amount of acceleration is larger than typically observed which seems to correspond to a fairly large percentage of the comet's mass being ejected.

The clickbait stuff is wild. And now here I am, a person who was raised back in the pre-internet era of "check your sources" and "verify everything", knowing that I should believe a random person online, that I don't know, that posts under the pseudonym 'Galileo', over a guy who I do know is a Harvard professor.

 

[Sand]

The clickbait stuff is wild. And now here I am, a person who was raised back in the pre-internet era of "check your sources" and "verify everything", knowing that I should believe a random person online, that I don't know, that posts under the pseudonym 'Galileo', over a guy who I do know is a Harvard professor.

In all fairness, I'm a known random moron from the internet.

 

[El Floppo]

Even though im all in on a lot of space travel stuff in my news feed, this Atlas thing has evaded it. So its irrefutably aliens then?

 

[El Floppo]

A HS classmate of mine has spent his life making documentaries around sightings. Hes a normal dude who doesn't believe or disbelieve any of it (based on last conversation i had with him yesrs ago), and his docs arent pushing any agenda- just relaying a lot of first hand accounts and documentation...including a lot of military air folk from around the world. I appreciate the older school journalism approach ovee this new age of clixkbait algorithms. Crap...typing out Atlas mean im now foing to be bombarded with this crap.

 

[bagger]

Avi Loeb has been driving the 3I/Atlas could be a UFO thing and it's really weird, feels like he's cherry picking info and acting fairly unscientific, at one point putting the odds at 40% this was an alien craft. 40%?! What happened to this guy? Now watch him be right.

Tried to listen to him on Rogan, had to bail. What's his backstory? Was he a well respected astrophysicist before he embraced the alien angle or something?

Yes. He has an established track record of respected, published material and a resume that includes positions at Princeton and Harvard. In the last 5-10 years or so he seems to have become infatuated with speculation that interstellar objects like Oumuamua and 3I/ATLAS are of artificial origin. Many of his recent claims seem to be unsubstantiated sensationalism that is raising the contempt of colleagues in the scientific community.

I’m assuming he has siphilis and it’s made him crazy.

 

[Sand]

Though, to back up on this, I've got to see the math that argues the non-gravitational movement is due to sublimation/boiling causing jets to further accelerate the comet. Is there really enough of said phenomena to cause a significant change in the acceleration profile? Oh, and why wouldn't it be deceleration? My internal logic says a force vector away from the sun is a deceleration action - the closer to the sun the higher the gravity assist and the greater the speed (solar probe is a great current example of this).

 

[dkp993]

Avi Loeb has been driving the 3I/Atlas could be a UFO thing and it's really weird, feels like he's cherry picking info and acting fairly unscientific, at one point putting the odds at 40% this was an alien craft. 40%?! What happened to this guy? Now watch him be right.

He did Rogen last week and it was a fantastic interview. Bottom line, he’s absolutely not claiming it is an Alien craft, he’s simply saying the odds aren’t zero based on these strange observations. And because it’s not a zero percent proposition it’s worthy of further research and keeping our minds open to all possibilities. It’s a pretty rational position imo.

 

[foxco]

Avi Loeb has been driving the 3I/Atlas could be a UFO thing and it's really weird, feels like he's cherry picking info and acting fairly unscientific, at one point putting the odds at 40% this was an alien craft. 40%?! What happened to this guy? Now watch him be right.

He did Rogen last week and it was a fantastic interview. Bottom line, he’s absolutely not claiming it is an Alien craft, he’s simply saying the odds aren’t zero based on these strange observations. And because it’s not a zero percent proposition it’s worthy of further research and keeping our minds open to all possibilities. It’s a pretty rational position imo.

I'll disagree. He put it at 40% at one point offering no truly reliable data that would point to such a high probability. That's insane and his peers were quick to distance himself from this POV. If he'd kept it to a very slight possibility sure, but going that high is ludicrous (IMHO) without providing a massive amount of evidence. I know he's a genius but think he's been treating this unprofessionally at best. Just my .02.

 

[dkp993]

Avi Loeb has been driving the 3I/Atlas could be a UFO thing and it's really weird, feels like he's cherry picking info and acting fairly unscientific, at one point putting the odds at 40% this was an alien craft. 40%?! What happened to this guy? Now watch him be right.

He did Rogen last week and it was a fantastic interview. Bottom line, he’s absolutely not claiming it is an Alien craft, he’s simply saying the odds aren’t zero based on these strange observations. And because it’s not a zero percent proposition it’s worthy of further research and keeping our minds open to all possibilities. It’s a pretty rational position imo.

I'll disagree. He put it at 40% at one point offering no truly reliable data that would point to such a high probability. That's insane and his peers were quick to distance himself from this POV. If he'd kept it to a very slight possibility sure, but going that high is ludicrous (IMHO) without providing a massive amount of evidence. I know he's a genius but think he's been treating this unprofessionally at best. Just my .02.

Putting the 40% number aside, which I haven’t seen, but believe you he said, did you listen to the Rogen interview? I asked largely because he talks a lot about what you’re addressing as far as the mindset and how he’s viewed within the community and also how he views the scientific community should look at things.

I’m not saying I agree with everything he says, but I think he makes compelling arguments. The cornerstone of that compelling argument is that science community is too prone to make assumptions and shut down where open-mindedness should be the order of the day. That’s how breakthrough’s happen.

 

[foxco]

Putting the 40% number aside, which I haven’t seen, but believe you he said, did you listen to the Rogen interview? I asked largely because he talks a lot about what you’re addressing as far as the mindset and how he’s viewed within the community and also how he views the scientific community should look at things.

I’m not saying I agree with everything he says, but I think he makes compelling arguments. The cornerstone of that compelling argument is that science community is too prone to make assumptions and shut down where open-mindedness should be the order of the day. That’s how breakthrough’s happen.

I didn't see Rogen's interview yet but I've watched several of his other ones recently including the 40% one, but if we take out his odds I'm mostly fine with what he's been saying. Totally fine with him pointing out odd trajectories and so forth but feel it's reckless with how sure he was -- if he'd said 2%, 5%, no worries, so I'm 95% on board, just don't like reckless statements - Carl Sagan said it best with "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

The evidence provided so far is not remotely close to extraordinary IMO.... but hell, if it turns out to be E.T. drinks are on me!!!