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Speaker 1: Okay, let's just start with a thought experiment. Imagine the

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most remote, chaotic place you can think of, a place

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where the gravitational pull of our entire galaxy is just

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as strong as the Sun's.

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Speaker 2: That's already hard to even picture.

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Speaker 1: Right now, Imagine an object from that exact place, a

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primordial visitor besides of a small country, just wandering into

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our solar system.

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Speaker 2: And it's not behaving like anything we'd.

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Speaker 1: Expect, not at all. It's not just big, it's acting weird.

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It's too active, it's way too dark, and it's just

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it's too far away to be doing what it's doing.

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Speaker 2: Well, that object you're describing, it's very real. It's C

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twenty fourteen U and two seventy one, but it's better

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known as the Bernard Nelli Bernstein Commet, or just the

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BB commet exactly, and you're right, it's a rival is

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forcing scientists to basically rethink everything, solar system dynamics, the

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orc cloud, even the you know, the basic physics of

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how a comet lights up.

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Speaker 1: So that's our mission for this deep dive. We're going

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to be unpacking the insights from the research. And the

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analeis compiled by geophysicists Stefan Burns. We're going to look

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at the BB commets just unbelievable scale and it's totally

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anomalous behavior.

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Speaker 2: We're going way out to the fringes today. We'll unpack

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why this thing is so massive, explore its chaotic origins

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and deep space, and get into why it's activity so

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far from the Sun is creating what you could call

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a nonlinear system, basically something truly unpredictable.

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Speaker 1: And because the universe seems to love a good story,

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we'll also take a quick look at its smaller stranger

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cousin that's visiting right now, the interstellar object three iet lice.

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Speaker 2: Ah, Yes, the interstellar visitor, and we're going to reveal

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a really remarkable cosmic synchronicity that connects its passage to

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planetary alignments happening right here.

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Speaker 1: So we're talking cosmic scale, fundamental chaos, and some really

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surprising connections. Let's get into it.

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Speaker 2: Let's do it.

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Speaker 1: So when we talk about C twenty fourteen UN two

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seventy one, the first thing we really have just to

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nail down is the sheer size.

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Speaker 2: It's staggering, it really is. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: The analysis drawing from describes it as quite bizarre and

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more importantly immense. The current estimates, and these are based

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on observations going all the way back to twenty ten,

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they put it solid nucleus at around one hundred and

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fifty kilometers in diameter.

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Speaker 2: One hundred and fifty kilometers, and that number is where

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you really start to grasp how unique this thing is.

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You have to put it in perspective because in space,

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you know, big can mean a lot of things, right,

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It's all relative exactly, So NASA gives us some really

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great context for this thing. About Haley's comment, it's the

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iconic comet, right, it's captured human imagination for centuries, millennia,

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even millennia. Well, it's nucleus is barely seven miles across.

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It's basically a tiny icy potato floating through space.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. I remember seeing Hailbop in the nineties. Yeah, and

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that felt absolutely monumental. You could see it with the

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naked eye. It was this huge thing in the sky.

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Speaker 2: And Hailbop was a monster for its time. It checked

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in at around forty six miles across. That felt like,

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you know, the upper limit for a really dynamic, spectacular commet.

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Speaker 1: And then comes bib.

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Speaker 2: And then comes the BB comet, which just completely breaks

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the scale. Its estimated sizes eighty five miles across. It

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completely dwarfs Talebop. It's by a huge mangin. It's the

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second largest known comet that acts like a comet.

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Speaker 1: And you said that estimate is pretty solid.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's considered reasonably solid. The reason is because the

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researchers Bernard and Ellie and Bernstein, they did this incredible

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work of sifting through years, decades of historical sky catalogs

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to track its path backward in time. So we have

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a really long observational baseline on it.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so if it's the second largest, what's the biggest.

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Speaker 2: The only known object that's bigger and is also categorized

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as a comet is something called the centaur Chiron. It's

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a colossal two hundred and twenty kilometers in diameter.

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Speaker 1: Wow.

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Speaker 2: But and this is the absolutely crucial difference that the

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material we're looking at really emphasizes. Chiron is a permanent resident.

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Speaker 1: What do you mean a resident?

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Speaker 2: It orbits between Jupiter and Uranus. It's captor. It's locked

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into the gravitational dance of our solar system and never

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leaves that inner environment. It's active, it has a coma,

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but it's one of ours. It's domesticated.

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Speaker 1: You could say, okay, so chiron is a known quantity,

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more or less, more or less.

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Speaker 2: But the BB commet. It's a visitor from the deepest, darkest,

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coldest fringes of everything. It's what you might call a

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truly pristine, primordial object.

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Speaker 1: And we know this because of its orbit.

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Speaker 2: We know this because of its orbit. The calculations show

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its furthest distance from the Sun, what astronomers call its aphelion,

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was somewhere between an astonishing forty thousand and sixty thousand

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astronomical units.

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Speaker 1: Okay, let's pause on that number for a second. Forty

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thousand AU.

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Speaker 2: It's mind boggling.

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Speaker 1: So one AU is the distance from the Earth to

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the Sun, the official boundary of our solar system's little bubble,

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the heliosphere, that only goes out to about one hundred AU. Right,

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You're saying, this thing spends most of its life four

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hundred times further away than the edge of the Sun's

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direct influence.

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Speaker 2: That's exactly it. And what's so fascinating is that when

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you're that far out, the Sun's gravitational poll is incredibly weak.

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The object is only, as they say, loosely bound to

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the Sun. It means that at its furthest point, it's

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in a region where the gravitational pull of the entire

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Milky Way galaxy, the collective mass of billions of stars,

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starts to become just as strong, or maybe even stronger

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than the Sun's direct pole. They call it the galactic tide.

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Speaker 1: So it's being pulled in two directions at once, by

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the Sun and by the whole galaxy.

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Speaker 2: Which leads to its orbit being described as a stochastic system.

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Speaker 1: Stochastic just means random, right, chaotic.

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Speaker 2: It's fundamentally chaotic and random, because it's so far out

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the gravity of the galaxy itself, that subtle constant pole

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can nudge its orbit, And then you have to factor

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in any passing stars.

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Speaker 1: But stars passing each other is super rare, isn't it?

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Speaker 2: It is? But we're talking about millions, maybe billions of

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years over that time scale. The gravitational tug of even

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a small brown dwarf for a rogue star passing bike

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can completely throw off its.

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Speaker 1: Trajectory, a kind of butterfly.

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Speaker 2: Effect, a perfect butterfly effect. It means we can't accurately

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trace its path back in time, and we can't reliably

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predict where it's going to go far into the future.

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The system is just it's not deterministic. It's wild.

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Speaker 1: So we have this massive, chaotic object coming from a

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place where galactic forces are as important as solar ones,

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and that directly points to its composition being primordial.

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Speaker 2: Exactly because its closest approach this time is only going

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to be about ten point ninety five Au. That's roughly

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the orbit of Saturn, which is still really far away

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it is, and the thinking is that it has probably

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never been this close to the Sun before. So the

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analysis from stuffan burns suggests it has a composition that

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we have literally never seen up close.

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Speaker 1: It's like a time capsule.

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Speaker 2: It's the ultimate time capsule object. You know. When a

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typical comet from the inner Orc Cloud or the Kuiper

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Belt passes around the Sun, it gets cooked, it gets

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processed by the.

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Speaker 1: Heat to melt stuff, burns off.

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Speaker 2: All the most volatile ices, the things that sublime easily,

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they get baked off or depleted. But the BB comet,

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having been in a deep freeze forty thousand au out

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for billions of years. It's untouched.

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Speaker 1: So what we could find on it is pristine material

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from the very formation of the Solar System.

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Speaker 2: That's the scientific holy grail right there, the exact material conditions,

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the isotope ratios, all of it perfectly preserved, untouched by

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the Sun's heat. That is the treasure locked inside that

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one hundred and fifty kilometer nucleus.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so let's talk about his current path. The source

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material says its trajectory is also really.

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Speaker 2: Strange, highly anomalous.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: First, there's its inclination. Its orbit is inclined at ninety

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five degrees to the ecliptic plane.

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Speaker 1: What does that mean?

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Speaker 2: In simple terms, think of the Solar System like a

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flat dinner plate or a vinyl record. All the planets

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are spinning on the surface of that plate. Okay, This

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object is coming at us almost perfectly top down, like

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a massive plumbline dropped from above, cutting straight through the

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plate at a right angle.

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Speaker 1: So it's not traveling in the same plane as Earth,

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in Mars and Jupiter. It's coming from up.

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Speaker 2: Or down exactly. And as of the time of this analysis,

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which was based on observations around late November it had

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already swung in from above and was positioned directly underneath

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the Solar System.

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Speaker 1: That geometry is fascinating. It means it's not just interacting

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with the planets one by one, it's interacting with the

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entire plane of the Solar System as a whole, in

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a way that comets traveling along the Ecliptic just don't.

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Speaker 2: Right. Its gravitational influences felt differently.

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Speaker 1: And even though it's so huge, you said, it's not

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diving deep into the inner system.

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Speaker 2: No, it's closest approach it's perihelion that's coming up in

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January twenty thirty one, but it will only get as

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close as ten point nine to five AU. It's just

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barely going to reach the orbit of Saturn, which.

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Speaker 1: Is really unusual for something that came in from that

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far away, isn't it. You'd think gravity would pull it

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in much closer.

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Speaker 2: You would, But this sort of hanging back is part

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of what makes it so unique. And after that closest

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approach near Saturn, it's not going to stick around.

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Speaker 1: It's on its way out again, right, It's.

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Speaker 2: Going to swing back up cut straight through the ecliptic plane.

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On August eight twenty thirty three, and then continue its

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journey out of the Solar system high above the planets.

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Speaker 1: And the timing of that crossing is interesting too.

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Speaker 2: It is right now we're in a period of high

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solar activity solar maximum, but that crucial crossing in twenty

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thirty three is likely to happen during a solar minimum.

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Speaker 1: Though the Sun's energy output will be much lower. The

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solar wind will be weaker.

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Speaker 2: Exactly, and that could totally change how the material it's

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shedding interacts with the Sun's magnetic fields and plasma. It

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just adds another layer of complexity to an already completely

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chaotic object.

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Speaker 1: Okay, let's move from its size and origin and dive

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into its behavior, because this is where the story gets

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even stranger.

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Speaker 2: This is where the real mystery is.

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Speaker 1: We expect comets to get active, to light up when

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they get close enough to the Sun for the ice

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to start boiling off. But this thing started having these

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huge spontaneous outbursts when it was twenty six a.

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Speaker 2: Away, twenty six AU that's out near the orbit of Neptune.

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Speaker 1: So to understand why that's so bizarre, we have to

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talk about the inverse square law.

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Speaker 2: Right and let's make this simple. The inverse square law

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just means that the Sun's energy, its light and heat,

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drops off really really fast the further away you get it.

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Speaker 1: So if you double your distance from the Sun, the

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energy you receive isn't cut in.

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Speaker 2: Half, No, it drops by a factor of four. It's

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the distance squared. So think about it like this, Earth

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gets one hundred percent of the Sun's energy at ONEAU.

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By the time you get out to Neptune at around

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thirty AU, you're getting less than one point one percent

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of that energy.

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Speaker 1: It's a rounding error. So the energy hitting the bb

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comet at twenty six AU is minuscule. You could be

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standing on its surface and you would barely feel any

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warmth from the Sun at all, and.

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Speaker 2: Yet it's exploding with activity. It's like trying to boil

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a giant pot of water with a single birthday candle

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from across the room. The heat is almost nothing.

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Speaker 1: But something is causing these volatile materials to just erupt.

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Speaker 2: The analysis detected carbon monoxide, carbon dide, dioxide, and ammonia.

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These are all things with super low sublimation temperatures. They

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go straight from a solid ice to a gas with

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just a tiny bit of energy, which goes.

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Speaker 1: Right back to the idea that it's primordial, only an

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object that's never been baked by the sun, which still

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have so much of that easy to boil stuff right

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on the.

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Speaker 2: Surface exactly, and the activity isn't just a little fizz.

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The numbers are staggering right now. Its steady state loss

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is about one thousand kilograms of dust and gas every second,

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every single second, and that's not even counting the big

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violent outbursts.

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Speaker 1: The source mentioned those two.

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Speaker 2: There have been reports of these spontaneous events ejecting over

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one hundred million kilograms of dust, ice, and gas in

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less than a day.

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Speaker 1: One hundred million kilograms. That's a colossal amount of material

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just being injected into the lower part of our solar system.

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Speaker 2: And that rapid ejection of mass acts like a rocket engine.

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It provides what's called non gravitational acceleration. The jets of

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gas are literally pushing the comet around, nudging its orbit

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just a little bit.

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Speaker 1: Adding to the chaos we were talking about earlier.

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Speaker 2: It just makes it even more unpredictable, which brings us

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back to the sources repeated warning that this system is

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non linear and.

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Speaker 1: Nonlinear means the outputs are not proportional to the inputs.

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A little change in energy could cause a massive disproportionate

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change behavior.

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Speaker 2: It's the perfect setup for a black Swan event, something sudden, unexpected,

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high impact that none of the current models saw coming.

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Speaker 1: So what are the current models predicting right now?

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Speaker 2: Based on its assumed activity, The models estimate its brightness

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will peak around a parent magnitude thirteen when it gets

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closest in twenty thirty one.

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Speaker 1: Which is super dim. You'd need a pretty big telescope

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to see that.

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Speaker 2: You would, But the source Stefan Burns suggests that given

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how active it is already, that estimate is almost certainly

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a massive understatement. It's highly likely to change.

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Speaker 1: And one of the key factors in that unpredictability is

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how dark it is.

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Speaker 2: It's albedo. Yeah. Albedo is just the measure of how

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much light something reflects, and the bb comet has a

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shockingly low albedo.

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Speaker 1: It's darker than asphalt or coal. It only reflects about

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four percent of the light that hits it.

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Speaker 2: The implications of that are enormous. If it's only reflecting

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four percent of the Sun's energy, it's absorbing ninety six percent.

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Speaker 1: It's just soaking it all up.

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Speaker 2: Like a giant black rock in space, just storing up

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all that solar energy as it gets closer and closer.

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And if that dark insulating crust on the surface is

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suddenly breached.

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Speaker 1: Maybe by one of those violent outbursts.

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Speaker 2: Exactly, it could expose all that pristine, highly volatile ice

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underneath to direct sunlight for the first time. That could

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trigger a massive, unpredictable chain reaction of outgassing. It could

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get dramatically brighter, way faster than anyone expects.

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Speaker 1: The dark surface is what maximizes the potential for a

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catastrophic energy release.

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Speaker 2: It does. And this leads us right into the most

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unique physical trait of this object. It's gravity, its own gravity,

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it's unique gravitational dynamics. This is a key insight from

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the analysis that we really have to break down. When

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we talk about normal commets, we just assume that any

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gas or dust that boils off, it's gone. It just

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flies off into space and forms the coma and the tail.

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Speaker 1: And that's true for smaller commets like Hayley's right, their

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gravity is basically zero.

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Speaker 2: It's negligible. Once a particle is launched by that sublimation process,

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it hits escape velocity almost instantly and it's gone for good.

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Speaker 1: But the BB comet, at one hundred and fifty kilometers across,

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is different. It has a significant gravity.

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Speaker 2: Well, it's big enough that its own gravitational field has

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to be part of the equation when you calculate its

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cometary activity. It can quite literally pull its own tail

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back down to the surface.

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Speaker 1: Okay, that changes everything.

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Speaker 2: It changes the entire process of outgassing. If some gas

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or dust gets ejected too slowly, or if it doesn't

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quite reach escape velocity, the comet's own gravity will recapture it.

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Speaker 1: So for it to even have a visible tail, the

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stuff has to be shot out with enough force to

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escape its own gravitational pull exactly.

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Speaker 2: Think of it like a volcano on a tiny asteroid

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versus of all cano on Earth. On the asteroid, the

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eruption sends rocks into orbit. On Earth, gravity pulls almost

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everything right back down.

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Speaker 1: The BB comet is somewhere in between. It's this constant

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battle between the force of the sublimation pushing out and

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the force of its own gravity pulling in.

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Speaker 2: And we have never ever had the chance to study

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this effect on a hypermassive commet as it gets this

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close to the sun. We've never seen it before.

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Speaker 1: So what does that mean for how it will look?

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Speaker 2: It could mean anything. Maybe if it recaptures dust, its

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coma will look denser but smaller, Or maybe its brightness

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won't increase as fast as we expect because so much

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of the visible material is just being recycled back onto

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the surface.

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Speaker 1: Our models just don't have the data for this.

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Speaker 2: They don't. This difference in physical behavior is precisely why

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its future is so uncertain. Our models lack any observational

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data for a comet with this level of self gravitational control.

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This is where that nonlinear black Swan potential truly lies.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so the BB commet is challenging all our models

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of these huge deep space objects. But we can get

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some really valuable perspective by looking at the chaos being

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caused by its much smaller, much faster cousin three il ass.

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Speaker 2: Right, we should definitely pivot to that for a moment,

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because even though it's tiny compared to the BB comet,

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it's causing its own set of unpredictable problems.

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Speaker 1: Right now, and three ialyis is significant because it's a

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true interstellar object.

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Speaker 2: It's from outside our Solar system entirely just passing through,

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and it's getting close. It's cutting inside the orbit of Mars,

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and just like the BB comet, its behavior is fundamentally anomalous.

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It seems to be a running theme with these visitors

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from the void.

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Speaker 1: The analysis pointed out one really specific strange feature in

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the recent images of it.

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Speaker 2: The forward facing jet.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, a forward facing jet or tail. Now comet tails

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are supposed to stream away from the Sun right pushed

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by the solar wind.

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Speaker 2: They are a tail pointing forward. Is just it's wrong.

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It's weird.

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Speaker 1: So what could be causing that?

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Speaker 2: Well, it could be a few things. Maybe the object

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has a really unusual spin axis and it's concentrating all

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the outgassing on one specific spot that just happens to

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be pointing forward as it moves. Or maybe its internal

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structure is really lumpy and irregular, causing the sublimation to

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be really asymmetrical.

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Speaker 1: Either way, it's not what a simple spherical comet should

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be doing, not at all.

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Speaker 2: It just goes to show that these interstellar objects, just

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like the primordial or cloud objects, they are bringing in

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a whole new set of physical dynamics that our standard

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solar system models just can't explain.

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Speaker 1: Yet, And we should probably mention how hard it is

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to even see this stuff. The source notes that the

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imaging is extremely difficult.

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Speaker 2: Oh, it's a huge technical challenge. To pull out the

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faint details of those jets, especially the forward facing one.

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Astronomers have to do what's called image.

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Speaker 1: Stacking, taking a bunch of pictures and laying them on

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top of.

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Speaker 2: Each other exactly. We're talking about combining something like fifty

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seven to one minute exposures. That's nearly an hour of

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total camera time just to pull the faint light from

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those gas jets out from all the background noise of space.

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The effort involved really tells you how important scientists think

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these anomalies are.

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Speaker 1: So this is where we shift a little bit. We

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go from the purely physical chaos to what the source

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material calls cosmic synchronicity.

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Speaker 2: Right, we're moving from the physics lab into the observatory

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to see how these physical events line up with bigger

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cosmic rhythms, And the source highlights a truly remarkable astronomical

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alignment that perfectly matches the key dates of three Illis visit.

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Speaker 1: This part just blew my mind. Because of Mercury's retrograde motion.

401
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We recently had a series of three exact Mercury Uranus oppositions.

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Speaker 2: With the Earth sitting perfectly in the middle of them.

403
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Speaker 1: And these three specific alignments happening so close together, line

404
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up perfectly with the three most important dates of the

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three iadalyst transit.

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Speaker 2: It's an incredible coincidence. If it is one, let's just

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trace the triad. The first opposition was on October twenty ninth. Okay,

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that date perfectly matched three ialyiss perihelion, its closest approach

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to the Sun, the moment of its peak energy.

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Speaker 1: Input, one for one. What about the second?

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Speaker 2: The second opposition happened on November nineteenth. That was the

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exact date of a big NASA livestream that was all

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about three eye alis.

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Speaker 1: I remember that the source material said the community was

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really excited for but the images they shared were kind

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of underwhelming.

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Speaker 2: The analysis called them awful. Yeah, but still it was

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a massive globally focused moment of communication and information flow

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about this interstellar object. And the third one, the third

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and final opposition in the sequence is set for December nineteenth,

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and that aligns perfectly with three I, at least's closest

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approach to Earth.

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Speaker 1: Wow.

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Speaker 2: The fact that this specific rare planetary geometry, a repeating

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tryad of oppositions, lines up so precisely with the objects

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three major energetic and communicative moments is well mathematically, it's

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almost poetic.

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Speaker 1: It really makes me wonder about coincidence, doesn't it. Is

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it just random chance or is there some kind of

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wider cosmic rhythm we're just starting to know.

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Speaker 2: Well, the source material uses the synchronicity to explore the

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symbolic meaning of it all, drawing on the traditional archetypes

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of these planets.

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Speaker 1: So what's the symbolic interpretation.

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Speaker 2: Well, when you look at the symbology, ureness is always

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connected to radical change, sudden breakthroughs, liberation of understanding. It's

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the great awakener.

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Speaker 1: And mercury is communication.

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Speaker 2: Communication, information, data the mind. And because it's an opposition,

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the sun is right there in the middle, which brings

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in ideas of consciousness, awareness, illumination, literally shining a light

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on things that were hidden in the dark.

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Speaker 1: So the argument from the analysis is that the arrival

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of these strange unpredictable objects, both the giant BB commet

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and the voladal three Iolis is tied to a period

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of radical shifts in our own understanding.

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Speaker 2: That's the idea. The synchronous events are seen as this illuminating,

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awareness provoking transit that three Ilis is essentially bringing in

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these unique interstellar light codes that are helping to tune

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us into resonance with these much faster and more distant spaces.

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Speaker 1: It's about expanding our consciousness beyond just Earth and Mars

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and the familiar planets.

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Speaker 2: Exactly. The chaos of the objects and the synchronicity of

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the alignments are together a kind of message, a reminder

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that the entire universe, with all its vastness and unpredictability,

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is our actual home. It reframes space exploration not just

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as a physical journey, but as an expansion of our

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own awareness.

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Speaker 1: Let's bring it back to our main event, the BB

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Comet and talk about what it means for us right

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now and in the future. Because it's not just sitting

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out there waiting for twenty thirty one. It's already actively

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changing the Solar System.

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Speaker 2: It absolutely is because of its current position almost at

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a right angle to the ecliptic directly underneath us. It's

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already actively participating in the energy of the Solar System.

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Speaker 1: It's shedding that thousand kilograms of material every second.

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Speaker 2: Right, it is actively littering the entire bottom floor of

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the Solar System with vast amounts of this really primordial

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dust and gas.

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Speaker 1: And this isn't just regular space dusk, pristine volatile stuff

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rich in CO two and ammonia iceis.

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Speaker 2: This material will spread out and given the comets huge

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size and how long it's going to be active, it

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could genuinely affect the flow of the solar wind, it

476
00:22:11,960 --> 00:22:14,680
could alter the magnetic environment, It might even impact the

477
00:22:14,720 --> 00:22:18,680
overall structure of the heliosphere. We're seeing a massive, unknown

478
00:22:18,720 --> 00:22:21,519
substance being injected into our local environment, and.

479
00:22:21,480 --> 00:22:23,960
Speaker 1: Its path guarantees this will be a long term thing

480
00:22:24,279 --> 00:22:24,680
for sure.

481
00:22:24,839 --> 00:22:27,039
Speaker 2: Once it swings back up past Saturn, it's going to

482
00:22:27,039 --> 00:22:30,079
continue on its path high above the ecliptic plane. It

483
00:22:30,119 --> 00:22:32,960
will eventually line up above the inner Solar System sometime

484
00:22:33,000 --> 00:22:36,160
around twenty sixty nine. So this one object is going

485
00:22:36,200 --> 00:22:38,599
to be altering our environment and giving us new things

486
00:22:38,640 --> 00:22:39,880
to observe for decades.

487
00:22:40,279 --> 00:22:44,599
Speaker 1: Given all of that scientific potential. A pristine sample of

488
00:22:44,640 --> 00:22:47,880
the deep Solar system. It just screams for emission.

489
00:22:48,160 --> 00:22:51,440
Speaker 2: There's an urgent need for proactive planning, and the analysis

490
00:22:51,480 --> 00:22:54,759
makes a great point because its closest approach is still

491
00:22:54,880 --> 00:22:57,799
years away in twenty thirty one. We have a unique

492
00:22:57,799 --> 00:23:01,240
but limited window of opportunity to actually plan a fly

493
00:23:01,359 --> 00:23:01,960
by mission.

494
00:23:02,079 --> 00:23:04,680
Speaker 1: This is where the amateur astronomy community really shines.

495
00:23:04,759 --> 00:23:07,920
Speaker 2: Oh, it's the best of the community. Enthusiasts, particularly one

496
00:23:07,960 --> 00:23:10,640
amateur sited in the analysis, have already done the map.

497
00:23:10,799 --> 00:23:15,359
They've calculated and plotted out potential orbital maneuvers. They've shown

498
00:23:15,400 --> 00:23:17,400
that there is enough time to design a mission that

499
00:23:17,440 --> 00:23:20,000
could intercept the bb commet around twenty thirty three or

500
00:23:20,039 --> 00:23:20,799
twenty thirty four.

501
00:23:20,839 --> 00:23:22,440
Speaker 1: Can you walk us through how that would even work?

502
00:23:22,480 --> 00:23:24,640
It sounds like a brilliant bit of orbital engineering.

503
00:23:24,839 --> 00:23:27,839
Speaker 2: It is. The proposed plan would send a probe out

504
00:23:27,839 --> 00:23:31,319
from Earth and it would use gravitational sling shots, getting

505
00:23:31,319 --> 00:23:33,480
a speed boost from the gravity of Earth and then

506
00:23:33,559 --> 00:23:38,440
venus to gain the velocity and crucially change its inclination.

507
00:23:38,160 --> 00:23:40,359
Speaker 1: To get out of the flat plane of the Solar

508
00:23:40,400 --> 00:23:41,480
System exactly.

509
00:23:41,680 --> 00:23:43,359
Speaker 2: The goal is to set the probe on a course

510
00:23:43,400 --> 00:23:46,200
to meet the comet just after it crosses the ecliptic

511
00:23:46,240 --> 00:23:49,000
on its way out. That twenty thirty three to twenty

512
00:23:49,079 --> 00:23:52,359
thirty four window is key, because the comet will be

513
00:23:52,400 --> 00:23:54,680
high enough above the plane that we can intercept it

514
00:23:54,920 --> 00:23:56,920
without needing an impossibly huge.

515
00:23:56,720 --> 00:24:01,319
Speaker 1: Amount of fuel and emission like that would be scientifically riceless, invaluable.

516
00:24:01,400 --> 00:24:04,680
Speaker 2: You'd be studying three huge things at once. First, the

517
00:24:04,720 --> 00:24:07,400
properties of ultra deep space, because the comet surface is

518
00:24:07,480 --> 00:24:11,400
literally carrying that environment with it. Second, the primordial composition

519
00:24:11,480 --> 00:24:14,440
of the early Solar system. We could finally confirm or

520
00:24:14,440 --> 00:24:15,960
deny all these hypotheses.

521
00:24:16,200 --> 00:24:19,119
Speaker 1: And third, we'd get to see firsthand the dynamics of

522
00:24:19,160 --> 00:24:22,400
a hypermassive comet. We'd get real data on how one

523
00:24:22,480 --> 00:24:25,400
hundred and fifty kilometer object with its own gravity well

524
00:24:25,920 --> 00:24:28,799
actually behaves when it gets energized. We could watch that

525
00:24:28,880 --> 00:24:32,200
interplay between sublimation and recapture in real time.

526
00:24:32,440 --> 00:24:35,799
Speaker 2: That data would instantly rewrite all our commentary models. And

527
00:24:35,880 --> 00:24:38,400
while the source is clear, there are no techno signatures

528
00:24:38,440 --> 00:24:42,160
suggesting this thing is artificial. It's completely unique dynamics make it,

529
00:24:42,160 --> 00:24:45,240
from a scientific standpoint compulsory to investigate.

530
00:24:45,480 --> 00:24:48,880
Speaker 1: But this amazing future opportunity is really highlighted by a

531
00:24:48,920 --> 00:24:52,519
recent and pretty painful mischance with three.

532
00:24:52,359 --> 00:24:55,519
Speaker 2: IAPP lists the Juno probe. Yeah, that's a cautionary tale

533
00:24:55,519 --> 00:24:58,359
about how slow institutions can be when science needs to

534
00:24:58,400 --> 00:24:59,039
move fast.

535
00:24:59,359 --> 00:25:03,200
Speaker 1: The context here is just it's agonizing. The Juno probe

536
00:25:03,319 --> 00:25:06,640
is orbiting Jupiter right now. It's done incredible work, but

537
00:25:06,720 --> 00:25:10,759
it's scheduled to be de orbited crashed into Jupiter's atmosphere

538
00:25:10,960 --> 00:25:13,880
within months of three iatlas's closest approach.

539
00:25:14,039 --> 00:25:16,440
Speaker 2: So we are about to destroy a perfectly good space

540
00:25:16,480 --> 00:25:19,519
probe while a once in a lifetime interstellar object flies

541
00:25:19,640 --> 00:25:20,880
right past its neighborhood.

542
00:25:20,920 --> 00:25:23,400
Speaker 1: And during that NASA livestream they even talked about it.

543
00:25:23,440 --> 00:25:25,640
They said things like, oh, if we could do something,

544
00:25:25,640 --> 00:25:26,519
we would, But.

545
00:25:26,480 --> 00:25:30,000
Speaker 2: The window to actually do something to divert Juno, even

546
00:25:30,039 --> 00:25:33,799
with its last bit of fuel, was already closed organizational

547
00:25:33,799 --> 00:25:36,799
inertia planning cycles, and they were just too slow to react.

548
00:25:37,000 --> 00:25:40,559
Speaker 1: It's a classic case of scientific opportunity cost. The probe

549
00:25:40,599 --> 00:25:43,880
was going to be destroyed anyway to avoid contaminating Jupiter's moons,

550
00:25:44,440 --> 00:25:46,599
so why not at least try a high risk, high

551
00:25:46,640 --> 00:25:50,039
reward mission use its final moments to gather some data

552
00:25:50,079 --> 00:25:53,119
on an object we may never see again. Missing that

553
00:25:53,240 --> 00:25:56,960
chance really underscores how urgently we need to think about

554
00:25:57,000 --> 00:25:57,759
the bb COMT.

555
00:25:58,000 --> 00:26:01,680
Speaker 2: We have the time, We have almost a decade until perihelion.

556
00:26:02,480 --> 00:26:04,799
We have the chance to plan this one correctly. We

557
00:26:04,960 --> 00:26:08,480
absolutely cannot miss this second opportunity to study a deep

558
00:26:08,519 --> 00:26:11,519
space visitor up close. The cost of just sitting back

559
00:26:11,559 --> 00:26:12,759
and watching is too high.

560
00:26:13,079 --> 00:26:15,039
Speaker 1: It really raises the point that so much of this

561
00:26:15,160 --> 00:26:18,440
is now being driven by the passion of the amateur community,

562
00:26:18,960 --> 00:26:20,079
not the big agencies.

563
00:26:20,200 --> 00:26:23,920
Speaker 2: They're doing the proactive calculations and the bold planning. We

564
00:26:24,000 --> 00:26:26,319
have a clear trajectory, we have a clear timeline for

565
00:26:26,400 --> 00:26:29,319
bb If we miss this window in the early twenty thirties,

566
00:26:29,559 --> 00:26:32,799
we miss the chance to characterize the most massive, most volatile,

567
00:26:32,880 --> 00:26:35,160
most primordial visitor of our lifetimes.

568
00:26:35,400 --> 00:26:38,000
Speaker 1: And that's the real challenge, isn't it turning all this

569
00:26:38,160 --> 00:26:41,119
knowledge into action. We know it's chaotic, we know it's massive.

570
00:26:41,200 --> 00:26:43,880
The analysis gives us all the data we need, the inclination,

571
00:26:43,920 --> 00:26:47,119
the periheri, and the time window, even a potential flight path.

572
00:26:47,319 --> 00:26:50,160
Now the scientific community just has to mobilize and seize

573
00:26:50,240 --> 00:26:52,319
the opportunity this ancient visitor is giving us.

574
00:26:52,359 --> 00:26:53,079
Speaker 2: Well to hope they do.

575
00:26:53,240 --> 00:26:56,440
Speaker 1: Okay, let's wrap up this incredible journey to the absolute

576
00:26:56,480 --> 00:26:58,960
fringes of our solar system. We've been looking at C

577
00:26:59,200 --> 00:27:02,319
twenty fourteen UN two seventy one, the BB comet, and

578
00:27:02,400 --> 00:27:06,000
its scale is just it's off the charts, one hundred

579
00:27:06,039 --> 00:27:09,319
and fifty kilometers across, the second largest known active.

580
00:27:09,000 --> 00:27:12,119
Speaker 2: Comet, and it comes from that chaotic ultra deep space

581
00:27:12,200 --> 00:27:15,920
region over forty thousand AU out. Its composition is completely

582
00:27:16,079 --> 00:27:17,279
utterly primordial.

583
00:27:17,519 --> 00:27:20,279
Speaker 1: We talked about how it's bizarre behavior started shockingly early,

584
00:27:20,319 --> 00:27:23,759
those spontaneous outbursts at twenty six AU, just defying all

585
00:27:23,759 --> 00:27:26,279
our models of solar energy. We established this is the

586
00:27:26,359 --> 00:27:28,240
ultimate non linear system, right.

587
00:27:28,559 --> 00:27:32,960
Speaker 2: It's absorbing almost all incoming energy with its four percent albedo,

588
00:27:33,319 --> 00:27:36,200
and critically, it has its own gravitational well that can

589
00:27:36,240 --> 00:27:40,119
actually recapture its own material. That just fundamentally changes all

590
00:27:40,119 --> 00:27:42,480
the rules of how comets work and makes any kind

591
00:27:42,519 --> 00:27:44,119
of prediction incredibly difficult.

592
00:27:44,279 --> 00:27:48,400
Speaker 1: We also drew that contrast with the fast volatile interstellar

593
00:27:48,480 --> 00:27:53,200
visitor three ialyis we noted it's strange forward facing jet

594
00:27:53,400 --> 00:27:56,799
and that incredible synchronicity linking its key moments with those

595
00:27:56,880 --> 00:27:58,839
powerful mercury Yeurinus.

596
00:27:58,559 --> 00:28:02,279
Speaker 2: Alignments, a synchronos that suggests the arrival of these objects

597
00:28:02,359 --> 00:28:06,000
is tied to a much wider cosmic rhythm of illumination

598
00:28:06,119 --> 00:28:07,920
and the liberation of our own understanding.

599
00:28:08,079 --> 00:28:11,200
Speaker 1: Ultimately, whether it's this immense primordial monster or the volatile

600
00:28:11,200 --> 00:28:15,119
interstellar speedster, these massive events are expanding our consciousness. They're

601
00:28:15,160 --> 00:28:18,240
pushing us beyond the familiar, comfortable inner planets.

602
00:28:18,319 --> 00:28:21,680
Speaker 2: They're challenging our deterministic models and reminding us that the vast,

603
00:28:21,880 --> 00:28:25,160
often chaotic universe is our true home. We are witnessing

604
00:28:25,160 --> 00:28:30,000
something entirely new, scientifically priceless, and completely unpredictable, and.

605
00:28:29,920 --> 00:28:32,079
Speaker 1: That leads us to the final and I think most

606
00:28:32,119 --> 00:28:35,960
critical question for you, the listener, to think about. Given

607
00:28:36,000 --> 00:28:39,200
the chaotic and unpredictable nature of C twenty fourteen UN

608
00:28:39,240 --> 00:28:43,519
two seventy one, its immense size, its unique gravitational control,

609
00:28:43,839 --> 00:28:47,480
those shocking early outbursts, do you think our current conservative

610
00:28:47,559 --> 00:28:50,000
estimates for its brightness and orbit are likely to hold

611
00:28:50,039 --> 00:28:52,519
true until twenty thirty one or as.

612
00:28:52,400 --> 00:28:55,359
Speaker 2: The analysis suggests, are we actually guaranteed a black Swan event,

613
00:28:55,559 --> 00:28:59,200
a moment where this immense dark object suddenly flares up,

614
00:28:59,440 --> 00:29:03,279
becoming dramatically brighter and even more unpredictable than it already is.

615
00:29:03,880 --> 00:29:05,519
Speaker 1: What do you think is going to happen when this

616
00:29:05,680 --> 00:29:09,319
colossal primordial object finally reaches its closest point to the

617
00:29:09,359 --> 00:29:11,079
Sun in January twenty thirty one.

618
00:29:11,400 --> 00:29:13,279
Speaker 2: Let us know your thoughts and your predictions. We will

619
00:29:13,319 --> 00:29:15,680
certainly be checking back in with this monster from deep

620
00:29:15,720 --> 00:29:19,240
space as it continues its incredible and unpredictable journey toward us.