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Speaker 1: Imagine this. It's a cold routine night up in Chile

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Rio Hurtado. You're an astronomer sitting in this big, quiet

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dome doing the work right, tracking space rocks, making sure

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everything adds up. It's important work, but maybe you know,

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a bit repetitive sometimes.

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Speaker 2: Oh definitely, it's meticulous, checking data from the minor planet center,

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verifying orbits. It's the groundwork for everything else. You're basically

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confirming physics night after night.

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Speaker 1: Exactly, confirming Keppler Newton, making sure everything's playing by the rules.

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And then suddenly a number flashes up. Designation three A

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eightis And it's not just a little off, it's laughing

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at the rules. You check the velocity, the orbit path,

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you think, okay, censer glitch system ror.

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Speaker 2: Standard chicks, Yeah, recalibrate everyone.

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Speaker 1: The data just sits there staring back at you, and

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in that moment, for that one person, everything they thought

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they knew about our solar system's boundaries just change.

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Speaker 2: And that's really what we're diving into today. We've looked

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at a whole stack of sources, observational data, the chemical

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analysis from well the best telescopes we have Hubble JWST

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exactly and the trajectory modeling all focused on this one

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object three itls, it came from outside our solar system,

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and pretty much every bit of data we have says

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it's breaking the mold. It's challenging how we even define

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comet or asteroid.

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Speaker 1: The first thing that hit everyone was just the raw speed,

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the sheer velocity.

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Speaker 2: It's hard to even wrap your head around it. Fifty

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eight kilometers per second relative to the Sun.

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Speaker 1: That's what about one hundred and thirty thousand.

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Speaker 2: Miles an hour roughly. Yeah, just incredibly fast. Think about it.

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You could whip around the Earth in like eleven minutes

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at that speed.

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Speaker 1: Or get to the Moon in under two hours.

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Speaker 2: It's nuts. Our sources are clear. This is hands down

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the fastest visitor we've ever clocked coming through our solar system.

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Speaker 1: And that speed, that crazy speed, immediately points to something

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called orbital eccentricity.

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Speaker 2: Right Hcisely, eccentricity basically measures how stretched out an orbit is.

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Zero is a perfect circle. One is a parabola. That

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means it's just barely hanging on by gravity.

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Speaker 1: So anything actually orbiting our part of the family, so

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to speak, has to be less than one.

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Speaker 2: Less than one that's the rule. That's the definition of

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being gravitationally bound to our Sun.

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Speaker 1: So what was the number for three I tail, Well,

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this is the kicker.

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Speaker 2: The first calculations came back with an eccentricity.

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Speaker 1: Over six six, not like one point one or one

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point two, No.

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Speaker 2: No, six, which means its path isn't just unbound, it's

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violently hyperbolic. It's moving way, way too fast to ever

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be captured by the Sun's gravity.

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Speaker 1: So conclusion number one right off the bat. It's interstellar,

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an intruder.

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Speaker 2: Undeniably. It didn't form here. It's come from somewhere else,

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probably traveling for million, maybe billions of.

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Speaker 1: Years, maybe getting gravitational nudges from other stars along the way,

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like a cosmic pinball.

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Speaker 2: Could be slang shot it across the galaxy. Yeah, and

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it just happens to be passing through our neighborhood now

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a direct link to the wider fosmos showing up on

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our doorstep.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so we know it's from out there, but out

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there is well huge. Figuring out where it came from

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that's the next challenge, right, and Matthew Hopkins team tackled this.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's way harder than just measuring speed. You're

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not just tracing it back out of our solar system.

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You need to trace it back through the galaxy.

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Speaker 1: Which means accounting for everything pretty much.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, billions of stars pulling on it, giant clouds of

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gas and dust, to the way the galaxy itself rotates,

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Different parts move at different speeds. They had to run

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these massive computer simulations called n body.

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Speaker 1: Simulations, simulating cosmic history basically.

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Speaker 2: Essentially, yeah, running the clock backwards for millions of years,

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to see where this thing's path originated.

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Speaker 1: And what did they find? Did it come from like

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a nearby star cluster?

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Speaker 2: Nope, something much more interesting. The simulation showed it came

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from a completely different part of the Milky Ways structure.

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See our sun lives in what we call the thin disk.

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Speaker 1: Okay, that's like our local neighborhood, flat relatively young stars.

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Speaker 2: Exactly younger stars, more heavy elements, all rotating in a

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pretty neat flat plane, but three I atlas its trajectory

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points back to the thick disk.

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Speaker 1: The thick disk. Okay, let's pause there. What's the difference

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If the thin disc is the main city the thick

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disc is, It's.

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Speaker 2: Like the older, more spread out suburbs maybe or maybe

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the historical foundations of the city. It's a puffier region

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above and below the thin disk, and it's full of

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much older stars, older how we call them population two stars.

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They formed much earlier in the galaxy's history, like ten

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twelve billion years ago. They have fewer heavy elements because

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they formed before generations of stars had cooked up things

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like carbon and iron.

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Speaker 1: So we're talking about stars from a fundamentally different, earlier

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era of the universe.

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Speaker 2: We really are. And if three ialsauce originated there around

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one of those ancient stars, well the agestimate is just staggering.

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Speaker 1: How old are we talking?

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Speaker 2: Hopkins team calculated it could be around ten billion years old?

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Speaker 1: Ten billion. Well, our whole solar system is only what

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four and a half billion years old exactly.

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Speaker 2: This thing might be more than twice as old as

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the Earth as the Sun. It likely formed around a

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star that burned out and died billions of years ago.

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Speaker 1: A star that maybe doesn't even exist anymore.

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Speaker 2: Very possibly, it's potentially the oldest comet or comet like

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object we've ever seen. A time capsule from the dawn

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of the Milky Way.

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Speaker 1: Wow. So You've got this piece of literal ancient history,

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formed when the galaxy was just getting started.

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Speaker 2: Carrying material from ten billion years ago.

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Speaker 1: And it just shows up now in our present.

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Speaker 2: That's profound, it really is. You can see why scientists

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immediately knew this wasn't just another rock. It's a messenger

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from the deep past.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so it's incredibly old from this ancient part of

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the galaxy, But what is it actually made of? Getting

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a look at it must have been tough, moving that

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fast and being so far away.

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Speaker 2: Extremely tough. David Hewett's team used the Hubble Space Telescope. First.

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Imagine trying to track a bird flying really fast, but

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you're using super powerful binoculars from say here to the moon.

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Kind of the scale of the challenge.

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Speaker 1: Keeping it in frame, getting enough.

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Speaker 2: Light right precision pointing was key, but Hubble managed it.

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And what they saw wasn't just a dot. It was fuzzy.

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It had this distinct tear drop shape.

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Speaker 1: Ah, so that means it's not just a dead rock,

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it's active like a comet.

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Speaker 2: Exactly that tear dropped was the coma gas and dust

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being released as ice is on the surface turned directly

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into gas sublimation.

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Speaker 1: And that tells us it has ice. But could they

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tell how big the actual solid bit the nucleus was.

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Speaker 2: Based on the size of that desk cloud, they estimated

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the nucleus is probably around five kilometers across, so maybe

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a couple of miles wide. Decent size but not enormous.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so we know it's icy releasing gas, but to

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really understand its history, you need the chemistry, right, the ingredient.

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Speaker 2: That's where the Games web Space Telescope comes in. JWST.

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Martin Cordiner led that observation.

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Speaker 1: And JWST is special because it sees.

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Speaker 2: An infrared light precisely. It's like having super powered infrared vision.

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It doesn't just take pictures.

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Speaker 1: It does spectroscopy, which is like reading a barcode.

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Speaker 2: That's a great analogy. Starlight passes through the gas coming

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off three iAtlas. Molecules in that gas absorb very specific wavelengths,

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specific colors of infrared light. JWST sees which colors are missing.

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Speaker 1: And the missing colors tell you what molecules are there.

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Like scanning the barcode tells you the product exactly.

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Speaker 2: It reveals the chemical fingerprint of the gas.

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Speaker 1: So what fingerprint did JWST find for three iAtlas? What

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was the big surprise?

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Speaker 2: The big surprise, and it was a huge one, was

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carbon dioxide CO two. The gas was overwhelmingly dominated by

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CO two.

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Speaker 1: Wait, hay On, don't. Commets in our solar system usually

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spew out water vapor like steam Haley's comet, hailbop. They're

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famous for their water.

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Speaker 2: That's the standard. Yes, and that's what makes three II

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tell us so weird and why it supports the age theory.

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Ce COO two ice turns to gas sublimates at much

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colder temperatures than water ice. Ok. Commets the belong to

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our solar system have swung by the sun many, many

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times over billions of years. Each time they get closer,

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they get baked.

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Speaker 1: Right. They lose the easy to boil off stuff.

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Speaker 2: First, exactly, The volatile stuff like CO two gets driven

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off early, leaving them richer in the harder to sublimate

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water ice. They're kind of pre cooked chemically altered by

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solar radiation. But three ioplis it was the opposite. The

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ratio was something like eight times more CO two being

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released than water vapor. That's one of the highest CO

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two to water ratios ever seen in any comic.

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Speaker 1: Wow. So the implication is.

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Speaker 2: The implication is stark. This object has likely never been

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close to a star before, or at least not close

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enough to get significantly warmed up. It's chemically pristine, untouched.

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Speaker 1: That ten billion year old time capsule idea. The chemistry

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backs it up. It's been kept in a deep freeze.

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Speaker 2: Perfectly preserved in the cold of interstellar space, carrying its

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original ingredients from the dawn of the galaxy until now.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so we've got this ancient, chemically pristine object moving

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at incredible speed. That's already a lot. But now now

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we get to the part that seems to just break physics.

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Its movement, right, we.

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Speaker 2: Know it's releasing huge amounts of gas, predominantly CO two.

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Speaker 1: We saw that with JWST and basic physics Newton's third

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law action reaction. If you're shooting gas out one way, you.

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Speaker 2: Could be pushed the other way. It's simple rocket science.

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Really comments do this all the time when they outgas.

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Those jets act like tiny thrusters.

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Speaker 1: Giving them a little nudge right, pushing them slightly off

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the path gravity alone would dictate. We call it non

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gravitational acceleration exactly.

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Speaker 2: Every comment we've ever studied shows this effect. You can

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measure it, you can predict it based on how much

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gas is coming off.

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Speaker 1: So with three I A lists pouring out record amounts

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of CO two, the rocket effect should have been noticeable.

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Speaker 2: It should have been significant. Models predicted that by early

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September based on the observed outgasing, it should have deviated

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measurably from its purely gravitational trajectory.

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Speaker 1: And what did the actual observations show? Did it deviate?

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Speaker 2: Not even a tiny bit. Observations confirm it was sticking

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perfectly precisely to the path calculated using only gravity. Despite

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pumping out all that gas, its acceleration was effectively zero.

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Speaker 1: Hold on, how is that possible? You have a force

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acting on it, this escaping gas, but no change in motion.

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That doesn't work.

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Speaker 2: It flies in the face of fundamental physics. It left

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scientists completely baffled, scrambling for an explanation, and basically they

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came up with two possibilities, both of which sound pretty impossible.

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Speaker 1: Okay, what's possibility Number one?

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Speaker 2: Mass? Maybe the object is just incredibly incredibly massive, so

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massive that the push from the escaping gas is like

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a fly bumping into a battleship. It just doesn't register.

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Speaker 1: How massive are we talking?

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Speaker 2: The calculation suggested to resist that outgassing force, it would

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need a mass over thirty three billion metric tons.

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Speaker 1: Thirty three billion tons. Didn't we say it was only

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about five kilometers wide?

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Speaker 2: Exactly? That's the problem. If you pack thirty three billion

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tons into a five kilometer sphere.

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Speaker 1: The density would be insane. What are we talking about

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leg iron?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, the density would have to be around eight or

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nine grams per cubic centimeter. That's denser than iron. Comets

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are supposed to be fluffy, icy dirt balls, maybe half

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the density of water, sometimes less, not solid metal cannon balls.

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Speaker 1: So explanation one is it's a ten billion year old,

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chemically pristine, super dense metal object pretending to be a comet,

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which seems unlikely, highly unlikely.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, especially given the observed outcasting, which implies ices.

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So that leads to possibility number two. Well, if it's

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not impossibly dense, if it's made in normal comet stuff,

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then the only way it could be firing off all

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that gas and not moving off course is if something

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is actively counteracting that force.

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Speaker 1: You mean like thrusters, artificial stabilization.

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Speaker 2: That's the implication, some form of active station keeping thrusters

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firing the opposite direction to perfectly cancel out the natural

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push from the CO two jets, keeping it precisely on

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its gravitational path.

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Speaker 1: We're actually having a scientific discussion about an interstellar object

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potentially using thrust.

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Speaker 2: The physics paradox forces that consideration. When you eliminate the impossible,

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the insane density, whatever remains, however improbable, Well, you have

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to look at it, and the idea of artificial course

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correction is now genuinely on the table. It's unprecedented.

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Speaker 1: Okay, this is getting wild, impossibly old, weird chemistry, defying physics,

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and now gets even stranger when we connect it to

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something else entirely Avi Lob's research right.

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Speaker 2: Now, Yeah, Professor Avi Loh from Harvard. He took that

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precisely measured trajectory, the one it's sticking to despite the outgassing,

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and traced it backwards.

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Speaker 1: Way way back beyond the thick discord, far beyond.

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Speaker 2: He projected its path across the sky to where it

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would have appeared to come from DP space, and it

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pointed to a very specific patch of sky in the

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constellation Sagittarius.

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Speaker 1: Sagittarius, why does that ring a belt?

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Speaker 2: Because Loeb realized immediately that region of Sagittarius is the

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same direction the famous Wilba W signal came from back

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in nineteen seventy seven.

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Speaker 1: The WOW signal. Okay, quick refresher for everyone. August seventy seven,

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Jerry Emmon looking at data from the Bigger radio telescope and.

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Speaker 2: He sees this incredibly strong narrowband signal just spikes off

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the chart. He circled it on the print out and

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wrote wow W next to it.

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Speaker 1: How strong was it?

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Speaker 2: A thirty times stronger than the background cosmic noise. It

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lasted for exactly seventy two seconds, tracking perfectly with the

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Earth's rotation, suggesting an extraterrestrial origin, and crucially, the.

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Speaker 1: Frequent spunting twenty megahertz the hydrogen line.

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Speaker 2: Exactly the frequency scientist figured any intelligent life trying to

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signal across the cosmos might use, because hydrogen is everywhere.

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It's like the universal dialing tone.

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Speaker 1: But it only lasted seventy two seconds and then gone,

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never heard again in almost fifty years, still totally unexplained.

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Speaker 2: Completely unexplained, and now he had this object three I

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at lists as of fast has ever seen, the one

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defining physics in its flight path lines up perfectly with

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where that unique signal.

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Speaker 1: Came from perfectly or is it just kind of close?

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Speaker 2: Loeb calculated the alignment. They line up within nine degrees

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of arc on the sky. The odds of that being

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pure chance less than one percent, about point six percent probability.

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Given how vast this guy is having the most mysterious

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object we've ever seen track back to the source of

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the most mysterious signal we've ever received. That's statistically mind boggling.

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Speaker 1: It's hard to dismiss that as just coincidence, very hard.

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Speaker 2: And then then there are the other reports, unconfirmed, we

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should stress, but persistent from amateur radio astronomers.

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Speaker 1: What did they claim to detect?

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Speaker 2: Reports surfaced, particularly around early August, of detecting a very

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brief signal of like eleven seconds long that seemed to

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be coming from three eyeles, itself.

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Speaker 1: A signal from the object. What kind of signal?

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Speaker 2: The claim was that, when decoded, it wasn't random noise.

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It was a repeating sequence of prime numbers two, three, five, seven,

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eleven prime numbers.

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Speaker 1: That's straight out of Carl Sagan. Isn't it the idea

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that primes are a universal sign of intelligence because they

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don't occur naturally exactly.

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Speaker 2: They require math, they require thought. It's the perfect hello,

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I'm intelligent message now again. And these are unconfirmed amateur reports.

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NASA hasn't said anything, but multiple Ham radio operators have

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reported detecting structured signals repeating roughly every twenty two minutes

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from that area of the sky.

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Speaker 1: So you've got the physics anomaly of the WLW signal

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alignment these alleged prime number signals. It's not surprising the

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conversation shifted.

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Speaker 2: Is it not at all? And Avi Lobe, who used

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to chair Harvard's astronomy department, He's not shying away from it.

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He's treating three a AT lists as a serious candidate

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for extraterrestrial technology.

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Speaker 1: What's his project doing, the Galileo project.

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Speaker 2: He's tasked his team. Their whole mission is the scientific

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search for et tech to monitor three iatlists closely, not

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just for gas and dust, but for any unusual activity,

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oh like could it be a carrier? Could it release

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smaller probes? He's openly talking about looking for many probes

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that could potentially visit Earth. When a scientist of his

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stature is publicly discussing that possibility linked to this specific object, well,

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we're definitely off the standard map.

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Speaker 1: Right, so the speculation is running high. And then came

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this golden opportunity for a really good look. The Mars

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fly by on October third.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that was potentially game changing. Three I and lasts

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passed about twenty nine million kilometers from Mars, which sounds far,

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but it meant it was perfectly positioned for observation by

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the fleet of orbiters we have there.

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Speaker 1: We've got some serious hardware orbiting Mars.

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Speaker 2: We do NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, mro ESA's Mars Express,

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the xmr's Trace Gas Orbiter, all passed with advanced cameras

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and sensors. It was a perfect chance to get a

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clear picture, maybe resolve the nuclear shape, see the outgassing

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jets or lack thereof.

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Speaker 1: Everyone was waiting for these amazing images, and what did

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we get.

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Speaker 2: We got one image, a single, really low quality picture

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taken by the Perseverance Rovers navigation camera.

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Speaker 1: The navcam. Isn't that just for spotting rocks? So the

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rover doesn't bump into them pretty much.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not designed for astronomy. And the image it

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produced was this blurry, elongated streak.

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Speaker 1: Which immediately blew up online right people calling it a

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giant tic tac or a cylinder.

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Speaker 2: The streak was about four pixels long, and people just

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assumed that represented the actual shape and size, leading to

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these conclusions of a massive fifty thousand kilometer long spaceship.

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Speaker 1: But that interpretation didn't hold up, did it.

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Speaker 2: Not? For a second. Experts including Lobe, pointed out the

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obvious flaw at that distance. Each pixel in that nabcam

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image covered a huge area, about twelve five hundred kilometers.

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Speaker 1: So a four pixel streak doesn't mean it's fifty thousand

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kilometers long.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely not. If something that enormous had entered the Solar System,

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we wouldn't need a rover's nabcam to see it would

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be obvious.

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Speaker 1: So what was the streak? Then?

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Speaker 2: It was just motion blur, an artifact of the long exposure.

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Because the object was so faint and moving relative to Mars,

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the camera had to take multiple exposures over about ten

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minutes and stack them together. The streak just shows the

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object's movement during that time.

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Speaker 1: So basically the worst possible image was released and it

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just fueled wild speculation instead of providing clarity.

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Speaker 2: Precisely, which leads to the really awkward question why only

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that image? Where's the good stuff from.

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Speaker 1: MRO, specifically the Mars Reconnaissance Warber Exactly.

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Speaker 2: MRO has the high rise camera, high resolution imaging science experiment.

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This thing can see features the size of a dinner

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table on the Martian surface for MORBID, So.

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Speaker 1: At twenty nine million kilometers it should have been able

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to get a much better view of three.

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Speaker 2: I at lists way better. Its resolution at that distance

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would be about thirty kilometers per pixel, plenty good enough

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to clearly see the five kilometer nucleus, maybe even see

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its shape, see if it's tumbling, see where the jets are.

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Speaker 1: And we know MRO is looking. It was tasked to

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observe it, but nothing was released.

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Speaker 2: Weeks went by nothing, which is highly unusual. Normally, Mars

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orbiter images, especially of something this interesting, get processed and

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released pretty quickly, sometimes within hours, usually within days.

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Speaker 1: What was the official reason for the delay?

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Speaker 2: They cited delays related to a potential US government shut

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down impacting staffing and processing pipelines.

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Speaker 1: Didn't they manage to process and release the low res

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rover image during that same period.

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Speaker 2: That's the inconsistency. Yeah, the explanation doesn't really track releasing

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the terrible image while withholding the high quality data they

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could actually answer key questions. It looks suspicious.

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Speaker 1: It feels like information control. If you wanted to manage

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the narrative with holding the clear evidence would be the

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way to do it.

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Speaker 2: It certainly raises that possibility. Whether intentional or just bureaucratic fumbling.

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The effect was to keep the public in the dark

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about what our best instruments actually saw during that crucial flyby.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so the trajectory is weird. The lack of images

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is weird. What about the light coming from it? You

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mentioned it glowing green?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, this was another strange development. Around early September, amateur astronomers,

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particularly observers in the Southern hemisphere like Michael Jerger and

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Gerald Raymond in Namibia started getting these really vivid photos

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showing three IAD als with a distinct green glow.

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Speaker 1: Okay, comments can glow green? Right, that's a known thing.

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Speaker 2: It is. It happens when sunlight breaks down a specific

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molecule containing two carbon atoms called diatomic carbon or C two.

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That molecule fluoresces green.

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Speaker 1: So that's the problem.

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Speaker 2: The problem is, just weeks before these green photos started appearing,

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one of the world's biggest telescopes, the Very Large Telescope

419
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or VLT, had done a detailed chemical analysis, and the

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VLT data indicated that three iidl loss was actually depleted

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in these carbon chain molecules, including C two. It should

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have been one of the least green comets ever seen.

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Speaker 1: So it shouldn't have been glowing green at all.

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Speaker 2: According to the VLT data, No, or at least not brightly.

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So you have this direct contradiction. Sophisticated analysis says no green,

426
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but amateur photos clearly show green glow.

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Speaker 1: How do you explain that. Did its chemistry suddenly change?

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Speaker 2: That would be incredibly rapid and hard to explain. Yea,

429
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or maybe there's some other process causing the green light

430
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that we don't understand yet for this specific object. It's

431
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another paradox.

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Speaker 1: And it gets even weirder with time lapse photos.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Analyst named Stephan Burns did a deep dive into

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some of those time lab sequences when he looked frame

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by frame and had other observers review it. The suggestion was, well,

436
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it didn't look like just one object.

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Speaker 1: What did it look like?

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Speaker 2: The analysis described potentially multiple objects, several fast moving points

439
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of light traveling together near the main fuzzy spot, and

440
00:21:23,079 --> 00:21:26,680
maybe even more bizarrely, the reported seeing a brief, separate

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flash of green light that seemed offset from the main

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object's core.

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Speaker 1: A separate green flash and multiple points of light that

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sounds less like a comet breaking up and more like

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formation flying.

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Speaker 2: It definitely pushes the boundaries of interpretation. Yeah, is it

447
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just fragments or something more structured? And then on top

448
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of the color mystery, there's the way it scatters light.

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Speaker 1: You mentioned polarization data. How does that work?

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Speaker 2: Polarization tells you how light waves are oriented after they

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bounce off something. Think about polarized sunglasses cutting glare. They

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block light waves vibrating in certain directions. By measuring the

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pollarization of sunlight reflecting off the comets, dust scientists can

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figure out stuff about the dust particles themselves, their size, shape,

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maybe even.

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Speaker 1: Texture like a fingerprint for the dust structure.

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Speaker 2: Exactly, and Zurigrace team analyze the polarization from three iAtlas.

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What they found was, in their words, an exceptionally deep

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and narrow negative polarization branch.

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Speaker 1: Okay, translate that for us. What does deep and narrow

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negative polarization mean.

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Speaker 2: It means the dust is scattering light in a way

463
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that is completely unique. We've never seen anything like it before,

464
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not from any common in our solar system, not from

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any asteroid, not even from Umuwua or Borso of the

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other interstellar visitors.

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Speaker 1: So the structure of the dust itself is anomalous.

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Speaker 2: It seems to be. The data suggests the particles might

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be incredibly porous, maybe very fluffy aggregates, or perhaps even

470
00:22:49,480 --> 00:22:54,000
something with a complex, maybe even fibrous structure. Whatever it is,

471
00:22:54,279 --> 00:22:56,880
it doesn't match anything we have in our celestial catalog.

472
00:22:57,440 --> 00:23:00,000
It's another piece of evidence screaming that this object is

473
00:23:00,039 --> 00:23:01,039
fundamentally different.

474
00:23:01,240 --> 00:23:04,279
Speaker 1: Okay, let's recap where we are. We have three I atlas,

475
00:23:05,200 --> 00:23:08,960
fastest ever, maybe ten billion years old. Weird co two

476
00:23:09,079 --> 00:23:13,839
chemistry defies physics by not accelerating tracks back to the

477
00:23:13,920 --> 00:23:17,559
WIW signal source. Maybe sent prime numbers glows green when

478
00:23:17,559 --> 00:23:20,599
it shouldn't, scatters light like nothing else, and the best

479
00:23:20,640 --> 00:23:22,839
pictures are missing. It's a lot.

480
00:23:22,960 --> 00:23:26,039
Speaker 2: It's an unprecedented pile up of anomalies, and now we're

481
00:23:26,079 --> 00:23:28,240
heading towards a critical point in its journey and a

482
00:23:28,240 --> 00:23:29,519
critical blind spot for us.

483
00:23:29,519 --> 00:23:32,640
Speaker 1: You're talking about pery Helian, its closest approach to the Sun.

484
00:23:32,839 --> 00:23:36,039
Speaker 2: Exactly around October thirtieth, it starts its swing around the Sun,

485
00:23:36,359 --> 00:23:39,319
and because of the orbital mechanics from our viewpoint on Earth,

486
00:23:39,440 --> 00:23:41,640
it's going to pass almost directly behind the Sun.

487
00:23:41,640 --> 00:23:44,319
Speaker 1: Meaning we lose sight of it completely for about three weeks.

488
00:23:44,400 --> 00:23:47,359
Speaker 2: Yeah, the Sun's glare will make it totally impossible to

489
00:23:47,359 --> 00:23:51,119
see with any ground based telescope. A total observational blackout

490
00:23:51,200 --> 00:23:53,759
during its closest, most intense encounter with.

491
00:23:53,759 --> 00:23:56,599
Speaker 1: The Sun and Perihelium is dangerous for comments. Isn't it

492
00:23:56,599 --> 00:23:57,799
the heat, the gravity?

493
00:23:57,920 --> 00:24:02,960
Speaker 2: It's brutal, extreme radiation, huge temperature swings, intense gravitational ties

494
00:24:03,000 --> 00:24:06,319
pulling on it. It's the ultimate stress test. Many comments

495
00:24:06,359 --> 00:24:07,440
don't survive, like.

496
00:24:07,440 --> 00:24:10,079
Speaker 1: Commet Ice in a few years back, went behind the

497
00:24:10,119 --> 00:24:12,319
Sun and just never came out exactly.

498
00:24:12,400 --> 00:24:17,359
Speaker 2: It disintegrated. Others like Comet Lovejoy survived but were visibly changed,

499
00:24:17,440 --> 00:24:20,720
maybe fragmented. So the natural expectation or fear is that

500
00:24:20,799 --> 00:24:23,440
three i outlasts might break apart during pery helium.

501
00:24:23,519 --> 00:24:26,200
Speaker 1: But given everything else, there's another fear. Isn't there a

502
00:24:26,240 --> 00:24:27,319
more speculative one.

503
00:24:27,440 --> 00:24:29,920
Speaker 2: There is, and it's a big But if this object

504
00:24:29,920 --> 00:24:33,279
is artificial, then maybe peri helium isn't a danger but

505
00:24:33,400 --> 00:24:38,039
an opportunity. Maybe the intense energy isn't destructive but activating.

506
00:24:38,160 --> 00:24:40,440
Speaker 1: Activating like using the Sun's energy.

507
00:24:40,160 --> 00:24:43,079
Speaker 2: For something, or simply using the cover of the blackout

508
00:24:43,079 --> 00:24:46,400
period to change state, deploy something, or maneuver in ways

509
00:24:46,440 --> 00:24:48,359
that would be obvious if we could see it. The

510
00:24:48,400 --> 00:24:51,960
timing is just convenient if you were inclined towards suspicion.

511
00:24:52,119 --> 00:24:54,960
Speaker 1: An object with all these weird properties disappears behind the

512
00:24:54,960 --> 00:24:57,440
sun right when data is being withheld. It does sound

513
00:24:57,480 --> 00:24:59,079
almost scripted, and.

514
00:24:59,119 --> 00:25:03,039
Speaker 2: Some observers have noted, though it's purely external speculation that

515
00:25:03,119 --> 00:25:09,240
this scenario, object approaches, disappears, potentially transforms while hidden echoes

516
00:25:09,279 --> 00:25:12,759
elements of certain conspiracy theories about staged events. We're not

517
00:25:12,880 --> 00:25:16,079
endorsing that, just noting the parallel being drawn because of

518
00:25:16,119 --> 00:25:17,359
the timing and lack.

519
00:25:17,200 --> 00:25:19,839
Speaker 1: Of data, So the key date becomes when it re

520
00:25:19,920 --> 00:25:22,200
emerges from behind the sun. When will that be.

521
00:25:22,640 --> 00:25:25,960
Speaker 2: It should start becoming visible again to ground telescopes sometime

522
00:25:26,000 --> 00:25:29,359
in December twenty twenty five. But there's another data point.

523
00:25:29,839 --> 00:25:33,559
ESA's Juice spacecraft, which is out near Jupiter, might get

524
00:25:33,559 --> 00:25:36,000
a look slightly earlier, maybe late November as it comes

525
00:25:36,039 --> 00:25:36,680
out of the glare.

526
00:25:36,960 --> 00:25:39,279
Speaker 1: Okay, so Gus, you might see it first. When do

527
00:25:39,359 --> 00:25:40,079
we get that data?

528
00:25:40,200 --> 00:25:43,680
Speaker 2: And here's another eyebrow raiser. ADASA has stated that the

529
00:25:43,799 --> 00:25:47,559
JZAC data from that period won't be processed and released

530
00:25:47,640 --> 00:25:49,480
until February twenty twenty six.

531
00:25:49,920 --> 00:25:52,440
Speaker 1: February, that's like three months after it's collected and after

532
00:25:52,480 --> 00:25:54,039
it's already visible from Earth again.

533
00:25:53,920 --> 00:25:57,039
Speaker 2: Exactly, which has led to cynical interpretations like that's three

534
00:25:57,079 --> 00:25:59,039
months for them to decide what they want to tell us.

535
00:25:59,319 --> 00:26:02,720
It feeds the narrative of potential information management.

536
00:26:02,599 --> 00:26:05,839
Speaker 1: So December twenty twenty five becomes this real focal point.

537
00:26:06,240 --> 00:26:08,839
What will we see when it comes back into view

538
00:26:08,960 --> 00:26:09,880
for everyone?

539
00:26:10,240 --> 00:26:14,160
Speaker 2: Some researchers are calling this the potential controlled revelation moment.

540
00:26:14,519 --> 00:26:18,039
Think about it. The public has been hearing about this object,

541
00:26:18,319 --> 00:26:22,559
hearing the anomalies, hearing top scientists like Loeb discuss alien

542
00:26:22,599 --> 00:26:25,559
tech possibilities. We've been sort of prepped.

543
00:26:25,200 --> 00:26:28,279
Speaker 1: So if something really weird emerges in December.

544
00:26:28,079 --> 00:26:32,240
Speaker 2: The authorities, NASA, ESA, they could just act surprised. Wow,

545
00:26:32,359 --> 00:26:34,680
look what happened during Perry Healion. We've never seen a

546
00:26:34,680 --> 00:26:36,920
comet do that before. It could be a way to

547
00:26:36,960 --> 00:26:41,160
gently introduce the reality of extraterrestrial technology without causing mass

548
00:26:41,200 --> 00:26:45,759
panic or the alternative. Or the alternative is complete denial,

549
00:26:46,480 --> 00:26:48,319
no matter what it looks like when it comes back,

550
00:26:48,359 --> 00:26:49,960
even if it looks like a fleet of ships, they

551
00:26:49,960 --> 00:26:53,279
can just insist, Nope, still just a really really weird comet.

552
00:26:53,480 --> 00:26:56,400
Fascinating natural phenomenon. And if they're still sitting on the

553
00:26:56,480 --> 00:26:59,799
hires Mars data, who could definitively.

554
00:26:59,240 --> 00:27:03,880
Speaker 1: Argue soh December twenty twenty five could be huge, or

555
00:27:03,920 --> 00:27:04,720
it could be nothing.

556
00:27:04,920 --> 00:27:06,680
Speaker 2: It genuinely feels like it could be one of the

557
00:27:06,720 --> 00:27:10,079
most significant months in human history, or it could just

558
00:27:10,119 --> 00:27:14,319
fizzle out and three eyead lays remains an intriguing scientific puzzle.

559
00:27:14,680 --> 00:27:17,559
But the fact that we're even having this conversation globally

560
00:27:18,039 --> 00:27:20,960
shows how much this object has shaken things up. Hashtag

561
00:27:20,960 --> 00:27:21,920
tag outright track.

562
00:27:21,799 --> 00:27:24,000
Speaker 1: Okay, let's just quickly run through the anomally list one

563
00:27:24,079 --> 00:27:27,480
last time because it's staggering. Three ilis fastest object ever.

564
00:27:27,640 --> 00:27:31,559
Speaker 2: Check estimated ten billion years old from the galaxy's ancient.

565
00:27:31,240 --> 00:27:35,240
Speaker 1: Thick disc Check pristine chemistry dominated by CO two, meaning

566
00:27:35,279 --> 00:27:37,400
it likely never saw a star up close before.

567
00:27:37,640 --> 00:27:41,000
Speaker 2: Check defies Newton's laws by outgassing like crazy but not

568
00:27:41,200 --> 00:27:44,920
accelerating at all. Check that forces the impossible density versus

569
00:27:45,000 --> 00:27:46,559
artificial station keeping debate.

570
00:27:46,720 --> 00:27:49,480
Speaker 1: Its path points directly back to the source of the

571
00:27:49,559 --> 00:27:54,839
unexplained nineteen seventy seven WOW signal, with tiny odds of

572
00:27:54,839 --> 00:27:55,440
being Chance.

573
00:27:56,319 --> 00:27:59,960
Speaker 2: Check unconfirmed reports of prime number signals detected from it.

574
00:28:00,359 --> 00:28:03,640
Speaker 1: Check the high resolution images from the Mars flyby are

575
00:28:03,680 --> 00:28:07,400
mysteriously missing, while a misleading low res image was released.

576
00:28:07,720 --> 00:28:10,799
Speaker 2: Check it glows green when it's known chemistry says it shouldn't,

577
00:28:11,079 --> 00:28:13,400
and it scatters light in a way unlike any known

578
00:28:13,519 --> 00:28:15,519
natural object. Double check.

579
00:28:15,599 --> 00:28:17,240
Speaker 1: I mean, when you list it all out like that,

580
00:28:17,480 --> 00:28:18,400
it's overwhelming.

581
00:28:18,559 --> 00:28:21,759
Speaker 2: It really is this single visitor, this piece of interstellar debris,

582
00:28:21,960 --> 00:28:25,400
or something else. It forces a fundamental question on us.

583
00:28:25,759 --> 00:28:29,359
Speaker 1: Is it just the universe throwing us the weirdest curveball imaginable,

584
00:28:29,440 --> 00:28:32,920
the most extreme rule breaking natural object we've ever encountered.

585
00:28:33,039 --> 00:28:35,400
Speaker 2: Is it something else? Is it technology, something that has

586
00:28:35,400 --> 00:28:38,920
somehow survived for ten billion years, crossing the vastness of

587
00:28:38,920 --> 00:28:41,000
the galaxy to arrive here now?

588
00:28:41,039 --> 00:28:43,559
Speaker 1: And the answer might genuinely depend on what we see,

589
00:28:43,759 --> 00:28:46,240
or perhaps more pointedly, what we are allowed to see,

590
00:28:46,279 --> 00:28:48,599
when it comes back out from behind the Sun in December.

591
00:28:48,880 --> 00:28:51,799
Speaker 2: It demands our attention. It forces us to think bigger,

592
00:28:52,000 --> 00:28:55,279
to reconsider our assumptions about the universe, and maybe, just

593
00:28:55,400 --> 00:28:59,759
maybe our solitude within it. December could be very interesting

594
00:28:59,759 --> 00:29:00,160
In the eight