Speaker 1: Welcome to Bedtime Astronomy. Explore the wonders of the cosmos
Speaker 1: with our soothing Bedtime Astronomie podcast. Each episode offers a
Speaker 1: gentle journey through the stars, planets, and beyond, perfect for
Speaker 1: unwinding after a long day. Let's travel through the mysteries
Speaker 1: of the universe as you drift off into a peaceful
Speaker 1: slumber under the night sky.
Speaker 2: Picture and objects out in the freezing absolute void of space.
Speaker 2: A massive, jagged, imposing chunk of material roughly the length
Speaker 2: of eight American football fields, just laid end to end.
Speaker 3: It's massive.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is a literal mountain, drifting hundreds of millions
Speaker 2: of miles away in the dark.
Speaker 3: And you know, normally, when we model the dynamics of
Speaker 3: these celestial bodies, we envision them moving with this slow,
Speaker 3: ponderous grace, like a.
Speaker 2: Lazy tumble through the vacuum, exactly.
Speaker 3: A slow geologic tumble.
Speaker 2: But not this one, No, not even close. This absolute
Speaker 2: behemoth is spinning so violently fast, completing a full three
Speaker 2: hundred and sixty degree rotation every one point eight eight minute.
Speaker 3: Which is just wild to even think about.
Speaker 2: It completely shatters the fundamental mathematical models of astrophysical structural integrity.
Speaker 3: It really does. I mean, we were talking about angular
Speaker 3: momentum on a scale that turns a sub kilometer rock
Speaker 3: into well the equivalent of a blender blade the size
Speaker 3: of the skyscraper.
Speaker 2: Right, and by the classical rules of gravitational binding energy,
Speaker 2: it just shouldn't exist.
Speaker 3: No, it shouldn't. The sheer centrifical forces that its equator
Speaker 3: should have overcome its internal gravity and ripped it apart
Speaker 3: into a massive, expanding cloud of space dust eons ago.
Speaker 2: But it's there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, The structural physics at play are completely unforgiving.
Speaker 2: Huh.
Speaker 3: When you look at the classical models of how we
Speaker 3: understand bodies in the main asteroid belt, the math simply
Speaker 3: does not support an object of that mass surviving that
Speaker 3: kind of rotational stress.
Speaker 2: And yet the data is unequivaled.
Speaker 3: It's out there, it's defying the classical limits of centrifugal force.
Speaker 2: And its mere existence is forcing the astronomical community to
Speaker 2: completely reconstruct the physical parameters of what is actually drifting
Speaker 2: around out there in our immediate cosmic neighborhood. Exactly so,
Speaker 2: the mechanics of how a structure like that stays intact
Speaker 2: under such extreme torsion is exactly what we're getting into
Speaker 2: today for you.
Speaker 3: A huge paradigm shift.
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, We're looking at the breath taking and honestly
Speaker 2: structurally baffling early data emerging from the engineering and commissioning
Speaker 2: phases of the vers Reuben Observatory.
Speaker 3: Right, which was just published in really twenty twenty six.
Speaker 2: And what we are really examining here is how the
Speaker 2: absolute bleeding edge of photometric engineering, specifically this massive three
Speaker 2: point two gigapixel LSST camera is fundamentally rewriting the textbooks
Speaker 2: and doing.
Speaker 3: It before the observatory is even officially fully operational, which
Speaker 3: is the crazy part.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we are uncovering an entirely hidden population of indestructible,
Speaker 2: hyper spinning Main Belt asteroids, and.
Speaker 3: We're looking down the barrel of an unprecedented flood of
Speaker 3: real time astronomical data processing.
Speaker 2: It fundamentally alters the timeline of human observation.
Speaker 3: The timeline aspect is precisely what makes the Ruben data
Speaker 3: so anomalous, I.
Speaker 2: Think, because we aren't even looking at the main event yet, right.
Speaker 3: The Via Sea Ruben Observatory, which is situated high up
Speaker 3: in the Chilean andes on Sarah.
Speaker 2: Pachuon beautiful location by the way, oh.
Speaker 3: Stunning, But it was explicitly engineered to conduct the legacy
Speaker 3: survey of space.
Speaker 2: And time the LSST exactly.
Speaker 3: And the entire architecture of the facility is built around
Speaker 3: the eight point four meters some OWNI survey telescope.
Speaker 2: Which, just to give you a sense of the light
Speaker 2: gathering power, we're talking about an eight point four meter
Speaker 2: primary mirror is roughly the width of a three story building.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it was spin cast in a rotating furnace
Speaker 3: at the University of Arizona just to create this uniquely complex,
Speaker 3: deeply curved honeycomb structure.
Speaker 2: It's an engineering marvel all on its own.
Speaker 3: It really is. And attached to that optical assembly is
Speaker 3: the LSST camera record.
Speaker 2: Holder for the largest digital camera ever constructed, right.
Speaker 3: I mean, the focal plan alone consists of one hundred
Speaker 3: and eighty nine individual charge.
Speaker 2: Couple devices CCDs.
Speaker 3: Yeah, CCDs cool to minus one hundred degrees celsius to
Speaker 3: eliminate thermal noise.
Speaker 2: Just massive scale.
Speaker 3: But these paradigm shifting discoveries about indestructible, hyper spinning metallic mountains,
Speaker 3: they're entirely a byproduct of the commissioning.
Speaker 2: Phase, right, the engineering phase, and that's what highlights the
Speaker 2: sheer leap and technological capability here. Yeah, because the commissioning
Speaker 2: phase is essentially just the telescope clearing its throat. It's
Speaker 2: a calibration run exactly. It's the engineering teams doing test patterns,
Speaker 2: aligning the secondary mirrors, verifying the cryogenic cooling on those
Speaker 2: one hundred and eighty nine CCD, just.
Speaker 3: Making sure the initial data pipelines are actually passing information correctly.
Speaker 2: They haven't even officially initiated the ten year continuous survey.
Speaker 3: And the telescope is already generating a completely unmanageable dailuge
Speaker 3: of discoveries.
Speaker 2: Which naturally forces a necessary of valuation of historical sky
Speaker 2: surveys right solutely, because we've been conducting extensive mapping of
Speaker 2: the sky for decades.
Speaker 3: Centuries if you count early optical telescopes.
Speaker 2: Right, we had the Palamar Sky Survey, we have the
Speaker 2: Sloan Digital Sky Survey pan stars in Hawaii, not.
Speaker 3: To mention orbital space telescopes for over thirty years.
Speaker 2: So if there are massive hyper spinning metallic needles in
Speaker 2: the Inner Solar System, the fact that they remained entirely
Speaker 2: invisible until a commissioning run in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3: It demands an explanation of the previous observational blind spots.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, why are we just seeing this now?
Speaker 2: It's like it's like upgrading from peering through a tiny
Speaker 2: people on your front door to suddenly having a massive
Speaker 2: bay window.
Speaker 3: That's a great way to put it.
Speaker 2: You suddenly realize your front yard is full of things
Speaker 2: you never even noticed were there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And to understand those historical blind spots, you really
Speaker 3: have to look at the inherent compromises dictated by optical physics.
Speaker 2: And sensor limitations. Prior to the LSST.
Speaker 3: Right, optical astronomy has been defined by this zero sum tradeoff.
Speaker 2: Like a seesaw.
Speaker 3: Exactly, if you want to look incredibly deep into the
Speaker 3: universe a to capture the faint light of a distant
Speaker 3: galaxy or a very small, very dark rock in the
Speaker 3: outer asteroid belt.
Speaker 2: You need a massive telescope with a long exposure time.
Speaker 3: Right, But that heavily restricts your field of view to
Speaker 3: a tiny, microscopic patch of the sky.
Speaker 2: It's the equivalent of trying to map the entire Pacific
Speaker 2: Ocean while looking through a drinking straw exactly.
Speaker 3: And conversely, if you want a wide field of view
Speaker 3: to scan large swaths of the sky for moving objects,
Speaker 3: you typically have to sacrifice aperture and.
Speaker 2: Depth, so you only catch the brightest, most obvious objects.
Speaker 3: Right. The engineering triumph of the Verric Rubin observatory is
Speaker 3: that it violently eliminates that compromise.
Speaker 2: It just throws it out the window.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it achieves an unprecedented unification of three distinct observational parameters.
Speaker 3: Immense depth, a massive nine point six square degree.
Speaker 2: Field of view, a relentless high frequency cadence.
Speaker 3: The cadence is the key.
Speaker 2: Yeah, The cadence is the variable that changes the game
Speaker 2: for transient and moving objects absolutely, because it's not just
Speaker 2: taking a wide deep picture. It's taking that same wide
Speaker 2: deep picture of the exact same coordinates.
Speaker 3: Repeatedly with very little downtime. Right.
Speaker 2: Previous surveys like pan stars were casting a very wide net,
Speaker 2: but the physical mesh of that net was too wide, and.
Speaker 3: The temporal gap between casting the net on the same
Speaker 3: patch of sky was far too long.
Speaker 2: So if you have an object that is incredibly faint,
Speaker 2: moving rapidly and changing its brightness profile, on a minute
Speaker 2: by minute basis.
Speaker 3: It easily slips through the temporal gaps of a slower survey, right.
Speaker 2: But Ruben is essentially establishing a continuous, high definition optical
Speaker 2: dragnet across the entire southern hemisphere exactly.
Speaker 3: And that high frequency optical dragnet is what captured the
Speaker 3: benchmark anomaly that is currently dominating the discourse. The star
Speaker 3: of the show Mainbelt asteroid twenty five five.
Speaker 2: Okay, let's lay out the precise physical parameters of twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five m n forty five for everyone, because the
Speaker 2: dimensions versus the kinematics are where the physics just totally
Speaker 2: break down.
Speaker 3: They really do.
Speaker 2: The photometric data places its diameter at roughly seven hundred
Speaker 2: and ten meters.
Speaker 3: So roughly zero point four four miles across a.
Speaker 2: Big chunk of rock, But the kinematic data is the
Speaker 2: absolute shocker. This seven hundred and ten meter mass is
Speaker 2: completing a full rotation every one point eight eight minutes,
Speaker 2: which is saggering if you calculate that out. This structure
Speaker 2: is undergoing roughly seven hundred and sixty five full rotations
Speaker 2: every single Earth.
Speaker 3: Day, and that rotational period is what places twenty twenty
Speaker 3: five m n forty five entirely outside the accepted boundaries
Speaker 3: of the spin.
Speaker 2: Barrier, the spin barrier for main belt asteroids.
Speaker 3: Right, And to contextualize why a one point eight eight
Speaker 3: minute rotation is fundamentally impossible under classical models, we have
Speaker 3: to look at what an asteroid of this size actually.
Speaker 2: Is, or what we thought it was exactly for.
Speaker 3: The last few decades, especially reinforced by sample return to
Speaker 3: asteroids like Ryugu and Benu.
Speaker 2: Incredible missions by the way, oh.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, but the consensus from those missions has been that
Speaker 3: the vast majority of asteroids larger than a couple one
Speaker 3: hundred meters are rubble piles.
Speaker 2: Right. They're not solid, contiguous monoliths.
Speaker 3: No, they are macroporous aggregates.
Speaker 2: Essentially just floating loosely bound collections of boulders, silicates, pebbles,
Speaker 2: and dust.
Speaker 3: Stuff that is just accreted together after ancient collisions.
Speaker 2: So the only force holding a rubble pile together is
Speaker 2: its own incredibly weak collective microgravity.
Speaker 3: Which means the structural integrity of the object is entirely
Speaker 3: dependent on gravitational binding energy.
Speaker 2: And gravity at a sub kilometer scale is practically non existent.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you were standing on the surface of a
Speaker 3: seven hundred meters rubble pile, the escape velocity would be
Speaker 3: so low you could literally achieve orbit just by jumping.
Speaker 2: That's a fun image. Just jump in You're in space.
Speaker 3: Right. But because the gravitational binding energy is so fragile,
Speaker 3: there's a rigid, mathematically defined speed limit for how fast
Speaker 3: a rubble pile can rotate before.
Speaker 2: The outward centrifical acceleration at the equator exceeds the inward
Speaker 2: gravitational acceleration exactly.
Speaker 3: We call this critical threshold the spin barrier, right, and
Speaker 3: the formula for critical density dictates that for typical silicate
Speaker 3: rubble piles, the absolute maximum rotation rate sits right around
Speaker 3: two point two.
Speaker 2: Hours, so one hundred and thirty two minute.
Speaker 3: Right. If a macroporous asteroid spins even a fraction faster
Speaker 3: than one rotation every one hundred and thirty two minutes,
Speaker 3: the centrifugal forces dominate.
Speaker 2: The object loses cohesion, the.
Speaker 3: Rocks at the equator achieve escape velocity, and the entire
Speaker 3: structure simply dissipates into a trailing cloud of debris.
Speaker 2: I always picture it like spinning a completely wet tennis ball.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: Oh that's a perfect analogis you.
Speaker 2: Spin it slowly, the water stays on, but you spin
Speaker 2: it fast enough and eventually the water just violently flies
Speaker 2: off in every direction. But the mathematics of centrifugal force,
Speaker 2: specifically mass time's angular velocity square where times the radius,
Speaker 2: means that the outward force increases exponentially as you drop
Speaker 2: the rotation time.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's not a linear scale, right, So.
Speaker 2: We aren't looking at an object flirting with the one
Speaker 2: hundred and thirty two minute barrier.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 3: Twenty twenty five m n forty five is rotating in
Speaker 3: under two minutes.
Speaker 2: It is rotating more than seventy times faster than the
Speaker 2: maximum theoretical limit for a rubble pile.
Speaker 3: Which is exactly why it hasn't disintegrated into a cloud
Speaker 3: of space dust.
Speaker 2: Well why hasn't it. If the gravitational binding energy is
Speaker 2: outmatched by a factor of seventy then gravity is entirely
Speaker 2: relevant to this object's cohesion.
Speaker 3: Completely irrelevant the internal physical strength required to hold that
Speaker 3: mass together against that level of angular momentum.
Speaker 2: It's more akin to the tensile strength required to build
Speaker 2: a space elevator cable.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're no longer talking about gravity. We're talking about
Speaker 3: extreme material ten cell strength.
Speaker 2: That is the inescapable conclusion the physics demand.
Speaker 3: It is the fact that twenty twenty five m N
Speaker 3: forty five survives this rotational stress profile definitively proves that
Speaker 3: it possesses immense internal cohesive strength.
Speaker 2: It categorically cannot be a rubble pile.
Speaker 3: No, it represents a completely different class of physical object.
Speaker 2: Which completely invalidates the ubiquitous rubble pile paradigm for objects
Speaker 2: in this size regime.
Speaker 3: It really forces a total rethink of asteroid anatomy.
Speaker 2: Right because if it's not a loosely accreted pile of silicates,
Speaker 2: the immediate question is material composition.
Speaker 3: What is it made of?
Speaker 2: Exactly what specific material can withstand that sheer rotational stress
Speaker 2: without fracturing. We are obviously looking at something contiguous, and.
Speaker 3: The structural requirements drastically narrow down the compositional possibilities. Y
Speaker 3: The baseline hypothesis is that it could be a monolithic
Speaker 3: chunk of highly competent, unfractured silicate.
Speaker 2: Rock okay, solid rock.
Speaker 3: Alternatively, some models suggest an intensely cohesive, tightly packed clay
Speaker 3: like material bound by complex hydration processes like cosmic cement exactly. However,
Speaker 3: the most physically robust hypothesis and the one that effortlessly
Speaker 3: satisfies the extrain ten cyle strength requirements, is that we
Speaker 3: are looking at a solid metallic.
Speaker 2: Core composed primarily of an iron nickel alloy.
Speaker 3: Right. Furthermore, the photometric analysis published by Dmitri Vavalov and
Speaker 3: the research team adds a critical geometric complication.
Speaker 2: Oh the shape.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the light curve amplitude of twenty twenty five m
Speaker 3: n forty five. In case that the object is not
Speaker 3: remotely spherical.
Speaker 2: It is highly elongated.
Speaker 3: Its aspect ratio suggests its effective length could actually approach
Speaker 3: a full kilometer across its longest axis.
Speaker 2: Wait, so the morphological reality is a one kilometer spinning needle. Yes,
Speaker 2: The physics of that geometry make the survival of the
Speaker 2: object even more astounding. Oh, absolutely, Because if you have
Speaker 2: an elongated structure rotating around its center of mass once
Speaker 2: every one point eighty eight minutes, the centripetal acceleration acting
Speaker 2: on the far tips of that one kilometer needle is
Speaker 2: orders of magnitude higher than if it were a compact sphere.
Speaker 3: The leverage is insane, right.
Speaker 2: The sheer mechanical shearing forces acting on the center of
Speaker 2: the object would snap almost any standard terrestrial rock right
Speaker 2: in half.
Speaker 3: Just cleanly break it.
Speaker 2: The fact that a one kilometer structure remains intact under
Speaker 2: those shearing forces heavily points totum metallic composition.
Speaker 3: It really does. We are talking about the kind of
Speaker 3: crystalline iron nickel structures like the Woodman Stetton patterns we
Speaker 3: see in certain meteorites.
Speaker 2: Right, those beautiful crosshatch patterns.
Speaker 3: Exactly, and those only form when molten metal cools incredibly
Speaker 3: slowly over millions of.
Speaker 2: Years, which brings us directly to the implications for early
Speaker 2: Solar System evolution.
Speaker 3: Because you do not spontaneously form a one kilometer solid
Speaker 3: chunk of highly structured iron nickel alloy from the gentle
Speaker 3: accretion of protoplanetary dust.
Speaker 2: No, you need a forge for that, right.
Speaker 3: Monolithic structures with that level of density and tensile strength
Speaker 3: are the physical byproducts of planetary differentiation.
Speaker 2: So early in the chaotic formation of the Solar System,
Speaker 2: there are these massive protoplanets.
Speaker 3: Planetesimals, large enough that their own radioactive decay and gravitational
Speaker 3: pressure caused them to completely melt, and.
Speaker 2: During this molten phase, the heavy elements like iron and
Speaker 2: nickel sank to the center to form a dense metallic core.
Speaker 3: While the lighter silicates floated up to form a rocky
Speaker 3: mantle in crust.
Speaker 2: So to get a one kilometer shard of that pure
Speaker 2: core material drifting freely in the main belt.
Speaker 3: You require a violent, catastrophic mechanism to strip away hundreds
Speaker 3: of kilometers of solid rock mantle.
Speaker 2: Exactly, these hyper spinning monoliths are likely the surviving shrapnel
Speaker 2: of utterly destroyed worlds.
Speaker 3: It's a bit poetic earlier it is.
Speaker 2: If two massive differentiated protoplanets collided at high velocity during
Speaker 2: the chaotic early days of the Solar System.
Speaker 3: The impact would have shattered their mantles and fractured their
Speaker 3: exposed metallic cores into fragments.
Speaker 2: So twenty twenty five Men forty five is in all
Speaker 2: probability a fractured piece of a dead world's heart just
Speaker 2: wandering the inner Solar System for the last four billion years.
Speaker 3: It is the ultimate survivor of a cosmic dema coalition Derby.
Speaker 2: I love that a cosmic demolition Derby, But what makes
Speaker 2: this finding so destabilizing to current models is the scale
Speaker 2: of the population, right, Because if twenty twenty five M
Speaker 2: and forty five was a singular anomaly, just one random
Speaker 2: iron needle tumbling through the dark, it could be categorized
Speaker 2: as a statistical outlier.
Speaker 3: A freak accident of celestial mechanics exactly.
Speaker 2: But the data unequivocally demonstrates that it is not alone,
Speaker 2: far from it.
Speaker 3: And this is where the sheer, unadulterated processing power of
Speaker 3: the Reuben observatory pipeline becomes the focus.
Speaker 2: Because this entire revelation the destruction of the spin barrier
Speaker 2: consensus was derived from a microscopic sliver of observation.
Speaker 3: Time, which is wild. The researchers pulled this data from
Speaker 3: just ten hours of active observation.
Speaker 2: Spread out over seven nights during April and May of
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3: In that incredibly brief ten hour window, Reuben identified nearly
Speaker 3: two thousand previously unknown Main Belt asteroids.
Speaker 2: And roughly nineteen hundred of those were confirmed as entirely discoveries.
Speaker 3: The yield from that ten hour window is just staggering, it.
Speaker 2: Really is, and embedded within that sample of nineteen hundred
Speaker 2: new objects was an entire, previously undetected population of extreme rotators.
Speaker 3: A whole hidden population.
Speaker 2: Yes, the photometric pipelines identified nineteen super fast rotators.
Speaker 3: Meaning asteroids that cleanly and undeniably violate the two point
Speaker 3: two hour spin.
Speaker 2: Barrier exactly, and even more profoundly, the pipeline flagged three
Speaker 2: ultrafast rotators.
Speaker 3: Which are massive objects completing full rotations entirely under the
Speaker 3: five minute.
Speaker 2: Marks under five minutes. The specific kinematic profiles of these
Speaker 2: ultrafast objects establish a definitive gradient of structural integrity across
Speaker 2: the main belt.
Speaker 3: Right, it's not just one.
Speaker 2: Rock exactly beyond our benchmark of twenty twenty five m
Speaker 2: N forty five. The pipeline flagged twenty twenty five MJ
Speaker 2: seventy one, exhibiting a rotation period of approximately one point
Speaker 2: nine minutes.
Speaker 3: You look at twenty twenty five mk forty one rotating
Speaker 3: every three point eight minutes.
Speaker 2: We've got twenty twenty five MV seventy one sitting at
Speaker 2: roughly thirteen.
Speaker 3: Minutes, and twenty twenty five mg fifty six at about
Speaker 3: sixteen minutes.
Speaker 2: And these are all objects hundreds of meters in diameter which.
Speaker 3: Completely inverts the assumed rarity of these monolithic structures.
Speaker 2: Right, we are looking at a scenario where highly cohesive, indestructible,
Speaker 2: hyper spinning fragments are not statistical anomalies.
Speaker 3: They are a highly common, ubiquitous population within the main belt.
Speaker 2: They were simply invisible to previous surveys because our sensor
Speaker 2: integration times were too slow and our cadence to relax.
Speaker 3: Exactly, we just weren't looking fast enough.
Speaker 2: But identifying the population immediately introduces a secondary kinematic puzzle,
Speaker 2: the why. Right, we know what they are, and we
Speaker 2: know they possess the tensile strength to survive the rotation.
Speaker 3: But what is the precise physical mechanism injecting that massive
Speaker 3: amount of angular momentum into these specific bodies?
Speaker 2: What is spinning up a one kilometer mass of iron
Speaker 2: to a two minute rotation?
Speaker 3: Well, to isolate the mechanism driving that extreme angular momentum,
Speaker 3: you really have to analyze the long term thermodynamic environment
Speaker 3: of the solar system. Okay, there are kinetic mechanisms, of course.
Speaker 3: A highly off center oblique impact from a smaller piece
Speaker 3: of debris can transfer substantial angular momentum.
Speaker 2: Basically spinning the object up like a billiard.
Speaker 3: Ball, right, And for objects whose orbits intersect the inner planets,
Speaker 3: title sheer forces during close planetary encounters can also induce
Speaker 3: rapid rotation, but.
Speaker 2: Those are situational exactly statistically.
Speaker 3: The most elegant, pervasive and continuous mechanism acting on the
Speaker 3: main belt is a subtle thermodynamic interaction known as the
Speaker 3: RP effect.
Speaker 2: The RP effect that's an acronym, right, Yes.
Speaker 3: It stands for the Yarkovsky Okey for Zevsky Paddac effect.
Speaker 2: Which combines the orbital drift theories of Yarkovski with the
Speaker 2: rotational torque mechanics developed by the latter three physicists.
Speaker 3: That's right, and the thermodynamics of the YOURP effect represent
Speaker 3: one of the most counterintuitive yet mathematically beautiful mechanisms in astrophysics, because.
Speaker 2: The premise is that ambient sunlight photons with absolutely zero
Speaker 2: rest to mass can exert enough physical torque to spin
Speaker 2: a billion ton metallic mountain up to a two minute.
Speaker 3: Rotation, which sounds impossible.
Speaker 2: It requires a deep dive into radiation pressure and anisotropic
Speaker 2: thermal emission.
Speaker 3: It entirely revolves around the principles of thermal inertia and
Speaker 3: photon momentum.
Speaker 2: Okay, break that down for us.
Speaker 3: So while pocons are massless, they carry momentum governed by
Speaker 3: their energy.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: When solar radiation impacts the surface of an irregularly shaped asteroid,
Speaker 3: the surface material absorbs that electromagnetic energy and.
Speaker 2: Heats up like asphalt on a sunny day, exactly, And.
Speaker 3: As the asteroid naturally rotates, that heated surface area turns
Speaker 3: away from the sun and faces the near absolute zero
Speaker 3: temperatures of deep space.
Speaker 2: So to maintain thermodynamic equilibrium, the asteroid radiates that stored
Speaker 2: heat energy back into space in the form of infrared photons.
Speaker 3: Right. But because the asteroid is a jagged, asymmetrical fragment
Speaker 3: like our one kilometer needle, with ridges, craters, and massive
Speaker 3: structural deformities, that.
Speaker 2: Thermal radiation is not emitted uniformly in all directions exactly.
Speaker 3: The andisotropic or uneven geometry of the asteroid means the
Speaker 3: infrared photons are emitted at various angles relative to the
Speaker 3: asteroid's center of mass.
Speaker 2: So every single infrared photon radiating off a tilted ridge
Speaker 2: carries away a microscopic fraction of momentum and.
Speaker 3: In the frictionless vacuum of space. This acts exactly like
Speaker 3: an array of incredibly weak, continuous thrusters mounted asymmetrically across
Speaker 3: the asteroid.
Speaker 2: Surface, creating a microscopic net torque.
Speaker 3: Yes now, over the span of a few days or
Speaker 3: even years, this thermal torque is entirely negligible.
Speaker 2: You wouldn't even notice it.
Speaker 3: But the RP effect is cumulative.
Speaker 2: Ah.
Speaker 3: When you apply that continuous asymmetrical thermal thrust over timescale
Speaker 3: of tens or hundreds of millions of years, it gradually
Speaker 3: and relentlessly accelerates the asteroids rotation.
Speaker 2: It's like a slow motion thermodynamic motor.
Speaker 3: Exactly taking a slowly tumbling monolithic shard and spinning it
Speaker 3: up until it hits a blistering two minute rotational velocity.
Speaker 2: The implication that solar radiation is acting as a continuous
Speaker 2: thermodynamic engine for millions of main belt objects is just profound.
Speaker 3: It's elegant physics.
Speaker 2: But the confirmation of that dynamic relies on an observational
Speaker 2: premis that warrants some scrutiny. I think, oh, for sure,
Speaker 2: if we are utilizing the RP effect to explain the
Speaker 2: angular momentum and we are definitively categorizing these bodies by
Speaker 2: their specific rotational velocities, like twenty twenty five m n
Speaker 2: forty five at exactly one point eight eight minutes.
Speaker 3: How are the octal centers actually deriving that kinematic data?
Speaker 2: Exactly? We are dealing with the objects that are under
Speaker 2: a kilometer wide sitting hundreds of millions of miles away. Right,
Speaker 2: Even with an eight point four meter primary mirror and
Speaker 2: a three point two gigapixel CCD array, the optical resolution
Speaker 2: cannot physically resolve the surface geography of these rocks.
Speaker 3: No, not even close.
Speaker 2: They do not appear as spinning mountains. They appear as
Speaker 2: a single subpixel point of light on a dark.
Speaker 3: Background, just to dot.
Speaker 2: So what is the specific data pipeline one that translates
Speaker 2: a single dot of light into a highly precise three
Speaker 2: dimensional kinematic and morphological model.
Speaker 3: Well, the solution to that observational limitation relies on a
Speaker 3: highly sophisticated photometric technique known as light curve inversion.
Speaker 2: What curbs.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you are perfectly correct that the telescope is not
Speaker 3: resolving the surface or the physical shape. The LSST camera
Speaker 3: is not capturing video of a tumbling rock right with
Speaker 3: the cryogenic CCDs are exceptionally engineered to capture is highly
Speaker 3: precise photometry the exact quantifiable amplitude of the light bouncing
Speaker 3: off that object.
Speaker 2: Because the asteroid is illuminated by the.
Speaker 3: Sun right and the amount of photons that reflects toward
Speaker 3: Earth is strictly proportional to the amount of surface area
Speaker 3: it exposes to our line of sight.
Speaker 2: Okay, so if we take the elongated one kilometer needle
Speaker 2: geometry of twenty twenty five forty five, as it rotates
Speaker 2: in the vacuum, the cross sectional area facing the Earth
Speaker 2: is constantly changing. When the broad one kilometer side of
Speaker 2: the needle is perpendicular to the telescope, it reflects a
Speaker 2: massive amount of solar radiation and the photometric brightness peaks right.
Speaker 3: But forty five seconds later, when the narrow, jagged tip
Speaker 3: of the needle rotates to face the Earth, the reflective
Speaker 3: surface area drastically shrinks.
Speaker 2: And the apparent brightness drops significantly.
Speaker 3: Precisely, and the data pipeline continuously measures that flux in
Speaker 3: apparent magnitude and plots it against time.
Speaker 2: The resulting graph is the light curve.
Speaker 3: Yes, I mean think of a lighthouse.
Speaker 2: Oh, I like this a rotating lighthouse from one hundred
Speaker 2: miles away exactly.
Speaker 3: But imagine the lighthouse is shaped like a lumpy potato.
Speaker 2: Okay, a lumpy potato lighthouse, right.
Speaker 3: You can't see the potato itself. But by timing the
Speaker 3: flashes of light, how long they last, how bright they get,
Speaker 3: you know exactly how fast it's spinning and can guess
Speaker 3: its shape.
Speaker 2: By analyzing the periodicity of the peaks and troughs in
Speaker 2: that light curve, the system mathematically derives the exact rotational
Speaker 2: period to fractions of a second.
Speaker 3: But the light curve inversion process goes far beyond just
Speaker 3: pinematic timing. Yeah. By mapping the specific slopes of the curve,
Speaker 3: like how sharply the light drops off, or the asymmetry
Speaker 3: between the primary and secondary brightness peaks, astronomers can solve
Speaker 3: the inverse problem.
Speaker 2: They can utilize complex algorithms to reconstruct a rough three
Speaker 2: dimensional wire frame of the asteroid's shape.
Speaker 3: Furthermore, by observing how the light curve alters its amplitude
Speaker 3: over several months as the Earth in the asteroid shift
Speaker 3: their relative orbital positions.
Speaker 2: We can determine the orientation of the asteroid's rotational pull
Speaker 2: in three dimensional space exactly. But wait, calculating those parameters
Speaker 2: requires an assumption of uniform albiedo, doesn't it.
Speaker 3: That's the tricky part.
Speaker 2: Yes, If the object is a differentiated monolithic fragment, wouldn't
Speaker 2: the reflectivity of the surface heavily skew the light curve?
Speaker 3: It absolutely could.
Speaker 2: Like if one side of the asteroid is a highly
Speaker 2: reflective iron nickel alloy and the other side is coated
Speaker 2: in dark carbonaceous chondrite dust.
Speaker 3: A brightness peak might simply indicate a highly reflective material
Speaker 3: facing us rather than a larger surface area.
Speaker 2: Right, So how does the Ruben photometry pipeline differentiate between
Speaker 2: geometric cross section and surface composition?
Speaker 3: That is exactly where the multiband photometric capabilities of the
Speaker 3: LSST camera become essential.
Speaker 2: Ah, the optical filters.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the camera doesn't just measure raw photon counts. It
Speaker 3: observes through a complex array of six distinct optical filters
Speaker 3: ranging from ultraviolet to near infrared.
Speaker 2: Because different materials reflect different wavelengths of light with varying efficiencies.
Speaker 3: Precisely, an iron rich metallic surface will yield a distinctly
Speaker 3: different spectral signature across those six filters compared to a
Speaker 3: dark carbonaceous silicate surface.
Speaker 2: So by cross referencing the amplitude of the light curve
Speaker 2: across multiple specific wavelengths, the data pipeline can filter out
Speaker 2: albedo variations from geometric variations.
Speaker 3: Yes, in this initial commissioning sample alone, the algorithms were
Speaker 3: able to extract not just precise rotation periods and elongated
Speaker 3: shape estimates, but also rough color, emetric and compositional data
Speaker 3: for seventy six distinct asteroids.
Speaker 2: Which really just highlights the staggering computational sensitivity of the
Speaker 2: entire apparatus.
Speaker 3: Mind blowing.
Speaker 2: To measure a one point eighty eight minute periodic fluctuation,
Speaker 2: correct for albedo variations across six spectral bands, and map
Speaker 2: it to a sub kilometer object hundreds of millions of
Speaker 2: miles away.
Speaker 3: It requires a margin of error that is practically microscopic.
Speaker 2: It requires an optical system that can take continuous high
Speaker 2: definition exposures while completely mitigating atmospheric distortion and thermal sensor noise.
Speaker 3: And the fact that the engineering teams achieve this level
Speaker 3: of data fidelity during a mere calibration run is astonishing.
Speaker 2: It is, and it perfectly contextualizes the sheer scale of
Speaker 2: the data processing architecture required to operate the Ruben Observatory.
Speaker 2: Oh definitely, because while finding nineteen hundred new asteroids in
Speaker 2: ten hours of observation is a massive scientific victory.
Speaker 3: In the context of the observatori's OULTI capability, it is
Speaker 3: practically a rounding error.
Speaker 2: Right. To truly comprehend the paradigm shift Reuben represents, we
Speaker 2: have to examine the systemic stress test conducted on February
Speaker 2: twenty four, twenty twenty six.
Speaker 3: Yes, the deluge.
Speaker 2: On that single night of observation, the automated pipelines processed
Speaker 2: and issued approximately eight hundred thousand real time astronomical alerts.
Speaker 3: The magnitude of eight hundred thousand alerts in a single
Speaker 3: night is well, it's difficult to contextualize within the framework
Speaker 3: of historical astronomy.
Speaker 2: It's just unprecedented.
Speaker 3: To understand the computational achievement, we have to define what
Speaker 3: constitutes an alert within the LSST data architecture.
Speaker 2: Okay, let's define it.
Speaker 3: The Reuben Observatory does not operate on a traditional model
Speaker 3: where astronomers manually download images to search for anomalies.
Speaker 2: Nobody is sitting there squinting at a.
Speaker 3: Screen, right, That would take lifetime. Yeah, The entire process
Speaker 3: is dictated by advanced machine learning and automated image subtraction.
Speaker 2: Pipelines image subtraction.
Speaker 3: Yet, every time the telescope captures an exposure of a
Speaker 3: specific coordinate in the sky, a supercomputer instantly aligns that
Speaker 3: new image with a deep historical template image of the
Speaker 3: exact same coordinates.
Speaker 2: So the system then mathematically subtracts the static background exactly.
Speaker 3: Every galaxy, every stationary star, every known nebula is removed from.
Speaker 2: The data, so the system is exclusively looking for the delta.
Speaker 2: It isolates anything that has moved, anything that has altered
Speaker 2: its photometric brightness, or anything that has spontaneously appeared in
Speaker 2: the sky that wasn't there in the template.
Speaker 3: Image precisely, and any isolated delta triggers an alert. Got it,
Speaker 3: But these alerts are not compiled into some daily digest. No,
Speaker 3: they are packaged with their precise coordinates, light curves, and
Speaker 3: historical photometric data and broadcasts globally to astronomical broker systems
Speaker 3: within roughly sixty to one hundred and twenty seconds of
Speaker 3: the telescope.
Speaker 2: Shutter closing within two minutes.
Speaker 3: Yes, and these alerts encompass a vast spectrum of astrophysical
Speaker 3: phenomena known as.
Speaker 2: Transience, transience meaning things that change.
Speaker 3: Right near Earth, asteroids streaking across the field of view.
Speaker 2: It flags cataclysmic variables where a white dwarf is siphoning
Speaker 2: matter from a companion star and igniting in a sudden nova.
Speaker 3: It captures the exact moment a distant supermassive black hole
Speaker 3: flares as it title disrupts and consumes a wandering star.
Speaker 2: It detects the massive initial optical flash of a star
Speaker 2: collapsing into a supernova in a galaxy billions of light
Speaker 2: years away.
Speaker 3: And the system successfully isolated, categorize, and broadcast eight hundred
Speaker 3: thousand of these transient events in a single evening.
Speaker 2: But the truly staggering reality of that February twenty fourth
Speaker 2: milestone is that it was merely a fraction of the
Speaker 2: system's eventual output.
Speaker 3: Oh.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, When the ten year Legacy Survey of Space and
Speaker 2: Time initiates its primary operations, the alert pipeline is explicitly
Speaker 2: engineered to process and distribute up to seven million alerts per.
Speaker 3: Night seven million distinct real time astrophysical anomalies every single
Speaker 3: time the Earth rotates.
Speaker 2: It's hard to even rep If your head around that number.
Speaker 3: The computational bottleneck completely shifts. The challenge is no longer
Speaker 3: gathering the light.
Speaker 2: The challenge is building an algorithmic architecture capable of filtering
Speaker 2: a torrent of data that no human being could ever
Speaker 2: hope to manually review.
Speaker 3: The transition from a few thousand alerts per night in
Speaker 3: legacy surveys to seven million alerts per night in the
Speaker 3: LSST era, it forces a total reliance on massive cloud
Speaker 3: based broker.
Speaker 2: Systems like Anta reason Allarcy exactly.
Speaker 3: These automated brokers ingest the massive fire hose of Ruben
Speaker 3: data and utilize highly trained convolutional neural networks to instantly
Speaker 3: classify the transience.
Speaker 2: They separate the noise from the signal.
Speaker 3: Right. If the neural network identifies the specific photometric signature
Speaker 3: of an early stage type as supernova, it instantly pings
Speaker 3: robotic spectroscopic telescopes across.
Speaker 2: The globe, commanding them to automatically pivot and capture the
Speaker 2: chemical spectra of the explosion before the initial light curve fades.
Speaker 3: It fundamentally transforms the methodolology of astronomical observation.
Speaker 2: From studying static historical photographs of the universe to interacting
Speaker 2: with a dynamic, high definition real time movie of the cosmos.
Speaker 3: We are actively transitioning from cosmic archaeology to cosmic live streaming.
Speaker 2: That's a great way to put it. But we must
Speaker 2: address the systemic application of this massive data architecture jeckev.
Speaker 3: Why does it matter right exactly?
Speaker 2: A highly detailed analysis of the Youurp effect, metallic core
Speaker 2: differentiation and automated transient brokers is fascinating on the theoretical level,
Speaker 2: But how.
Speaker 3: Does this immense influx of highly precise kinematic and morphological
Speaker 3: data apply to the immediate survival of the terrestrial biosphere?
Speaker 2: Because the structural and pegrity profile we mapped out for
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five N forty five has profound and immediate
Speaker 2: implications for the discipline of planetary defense.
Speaker 3: Well, the structural data is arguably the most critical metric
Speaker 3: for near Earth object impact mitigation.
Speaker 2: The core mandate of planetary defense is the early detection,
Speaker 2: precise character is ation an eventual deflection of any asteroid
Speaker 2: identified on a collision course.
Speaker 3: With Earth, and for the last twenty years, the prevailing
Speaker 3: deflection models heavily assumed that a hazardous impactor would likely
Speaker 3: be one of the macro porous rubble piles we discussed earlier.
Speaker 2: The aggregate gravel pit models.
Speaker 3: Right, and the physics of deflecting a highly porous aggregate
Speaker 3: object present massive engineering challenges.
Speaker 2: Because if you launch a kinetic impactor similar to the
Speaker 2: spacecraft utilized in the Dart mission and intentionally ram it
Speaker 2: into a rubble pile at extreme velocity.
Speaker 3: The momentum transfer is highly inefficient.
Speaker 2: The kinetic energy of the spacecraft is absorbed and dissipated
Speaker 2: by the extensive empty void space and the shifting regulif
Speaker 2: between the loosely bound boulders.
Speaker 3: Right the impact craters, the surface compresses the dust and
Speaker 3: perhaps creates a localized plume of ejecta, but.
Speaker 2: The overall delta V the change in velocity required to
Speaker 2: push the asteroid off its orbital trajectory, is severely dampened
Speaker 2: by the object's porosity.
Speaker 3: The physics of momentum transfer often represented in these calculations
Speaker 3: by the beta factor, which measures the enhancement of momentum
Speaker 3: from impact ejecta.
Speaker 2: It's entirely dependent on the structural cohesion of the target body.
Speaker 3: Exactly, if the Ruben observatory is conclusively proving that a
Speaker 3: significant percentage of main belt and by extension, near Earth
Speaker 3: objects are not highly pores rubble.
Speaker 2: Piles, but are in fact monolithic, densely packed silicates or
Speaker 2: solid iron nickel cores spinning at extreme velocities.
Speaker 3: The mathematical parameters of deflection change entirely.
Speaker 2: It is the kinetic difference between firing a projectile into
Speaker 2: a massive pile of sand versus firing a projectile into
Speaker 2: a solid anvil.
Speaker 3: That's the perfect analogy.
Speaker 2: If you execute a kinetic impact on a highly cohesive
Speaker 2: monolithic iron core, the kinetic energy does not dissipate into
Speaker 2: empty void space.
Speaker 3: No, the energy transfer is efficiently across the rigid crystalline structure.
Speaker 2: Of the metal, resulting in a much higher conservation of
Speaker 2: angular and linear momentum.
Speaker 3: You can actually push the object to off course with
Speaker 3: a high degree of matil mathematical predictability.
Speaker 2: However, the severe consequence of that structural density applies directly
Speaker 2: to the impact scenario itself, doesn't it Yes.
Speaker 3: Unfortunately, if a mitigation attempt fails, the atmospheric entry physics
Speaker 3: of a metallic monolith are vastly more destructive than a
Speaker 3: rubble pile of identical mass.
Speaker 2: Because a loosely bound aggregate of silicates will experience massive
Speaker 2: aerodynamic ram pressure as it hits the Earth's atmosphere at
Speaker 2: cosmic velocities.
Speaker 3: It will likely undergo catastrophic aer burst fragmentation high in
Speaker 3: the stratosphere, dissipating its kinetic energy in a massive shockway,
Speaker 3: which is bad. But a one kilometer solid iron core
Speaker 3: possesses the tensile strength to survive the extreme heat and
Speaker 3: pressure of atmospheric entry entirely intact.
Speaker 2: It will not fragment.
Speaker 3: It will deliver the entirety of its kinetic energy directly
Speaker 3: into the Earth's crust, resulting in a massively deep impact
Speaker 3: crater and catastrophic global seismic and climatic consequences.
Speaker 2: So Reuben's capacity to utilize precise multiband photometry to instantly
Speaker 2: characterize the density, structural cohesion, and exact rotational state of
Speaker 2: a newly discovered object within minutes of its detection.
Speaker 3: It is a profound leap forward in planetary risk assessment.
Speaker 2: The system allows us to instantly differentiate between a loosely
Speaker 2: bound kinetic sponge and a solid iron cannonball.
Speaker 3: Which is information you really want to have before you
Speaker 3: launch an interception mission.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, But alongside the immediate requirements of planetary defense, there
Speaker 2: is the broader macro level application of this data to
Speaker 2: the study of cosmic history.
Speaker 3: Right because we discussed how these monolithic fragments are the
Speaker 3: shattered cores of differentiated protoplanets.
Speaker 2: So by mapping the sheer volume of these extreme rotators
Speaker 2: across the main belt, we are essentially tracing the exact
Speaker 2: isotopic and structural blueprints of the early Solar System.
Speaker 3: These fast rotators serve as pristine kinetic time capsules.
Speaker 2: The fact that a one kilometer shard of iron survived
Speaker 2: the catastrophic collisions of the Early Solar System.
Speaker 3: Endure the chaotic gravitational migrations of Jupiter and Saturn during
Speaker 3: the Late Heavy bombardment.
Speaker 2: And withstood millions of years of extreme thermal torque from
Speaker 2: the Arp effect.
Speaker 3: It means it holds an unbroken physical record of our
Speaker 3: system's violent deccretion phase.
Speaker 2: So by utilizing the Ruben pipelines to map their precise
Speaker 2: orbital parameters, categorize their specific rotational velocities and analyze their
Speaker 2: multi BAM spectral compositions.
Speaker 3: Astrophysicists can reverse engineer the kinematic models of the early
Speaker 3: Solar System.
Speaker 2: We can determine exactly how many protoplanets formed, precisely where
Speaker 2: they were located, and what specific collisional events led to
Speaker 2: their destruction.
Speaker 3: It provides the physical evidence required to validate complex orbital
Speaker 3: dynamics models like the Nice model, which theorizes the dramatic
Speaker 3: migration of the giant planets.
Speaker 2: The perspective articulated by lead researcher Sarah green Street from
Speaker 2: the University of Washington and nor Lab perfectly synthesizes the
Speaker 2: impact of the Reuben architecture.
Speaker 3: Yeah Her analysis enters on the reality that Ruben's unprecedented
Speaker 3: combination of vast spatial breath, deep photometric sensitivity, and relentless
Speaker 3: temporal cadence captures the precise phenomena that historically slip through
Speaker 3: the observational gaps.
Speaker 2: We are crossing a threshold where entirely new classes of
Speaker 2: astrophysical phenomena are actively being categorized.
Speaker 3: The extreme kinematic profiles that we previously assumed were statistical.
Speaker 2: Impossibilities, like a solid metallic needle, spinning hundreds of times
Speaker 2: a day.
Speaker 3: They are rapidly being recognized as foundational, commonplace components of
Speaker 3: our solar system's architecture.
Speaker 2: We simply lacked the optical and computational machinery necessary to
Speaker 2: observe them, and it.
Speaker 3: Is vital to reiterate that the data set fundamentally dismantling
Speaker 3: our understanding of asteroid morphology was extracted from a mere
Speaker 3: ten hours of early engineering calibration ten hours. When the
Speaker 3: LSST fully initiates its decade long survey, processing millions of
Speaker 3: alerts per night, the volume of newly discovered Main Belt
Speaker 3: and Near Earth objects will reach into the hundreds of
Speaker 3: thousands annually.
Speaker 2: The sheer scale of the morphological and kinematic data we
Speaker 2: are about to ingest will require a continuous rewriting of
Speaker 2: astrophysical consensus.
Speaker 3: The structural parameters of the universe are about to be
Speaker 3: mapped with a terrifying level of precision.
Speaker 2: To synthesize the massive scope of the data we've explored today.
Speaker 2: We initiated this analysis with a singular, mathematically defiant anomaly.
Speaker 3: A subklometer mass of material drifting in the Main Belt
Speaker 3: subjected to such extreme angular momentum that it completes a
Speaker 3: full rotation every one point eight eight minutes.
Speaker 2: A kinematic profile that entirely shattered the accepted parameters of
Speaker 2: the two point two hour spin barrier and.
Speaker 3: Force the realization that we are observing highly cohesive, potentially
Speaker 3: metallic monoliths.
Speaker 2: The shattered, indestructible remnants of long dead protoplanetary cores.
Speaker 3: Right and from that single benchmark, we extrapolated a hidden
Speaker 3: massive population of these extreme rotators.
Speaker 2: They're incredible velocities, slowly and relentlessly accelerated over millions of
Speaker 2: years by the asymmetrical thermal emission of the r P effect, and.
Speaker 3: The entirety of this paradigm shift was captured by a
Speaker 3: revolutionary three point two gigapixel optical architecture in the Chilean
Speaker 3: Andes that is currently just running its baseline calibrations.
Speaker 2: Preparing to flood global data brokers with a relentless torrent
Speaker 2: of seven million astronomical transient alerts every single.
Speaker 3: Night, transitioning our view of the cosmos from a static
Speaker 3: image to a highly dynamic, real time kinematic map.
Speaker 2: It represents a fundamental evolution in human observation.
Speaker 3: We are moving beyond the era of passive localized sky
Speaker 3: mapping into an era of active, systemic real time monitoring
Speaker 3: of a highly complex, kinetically aggressive universe.
Speaker 2: The observational capabilities are truly entering a new epoch, and
Speaker 2: I want to leave you with one final, deeply intricate
Speaker 2: mechanism to consider. Yeah, we spend significant time analyzing the
Speaker 2: thermodynamics of the YRRP effect. The verified physical reality that
Speaker 2: the microscopic momentum of ambient solar radiation, the gentle, almost
Speaker 2: imperceptible transfer of heat and infrared f botons can act
Speaker 2: as a continuous thermodynamic.
Speaker 3: Motor, slowly and silently spinning a billion ton mountain of
Speaker 3: solid metal up to a blistering one point eighty eight
Speaker 3: minute rotational velocity over millions of years.
Speaker 2: It is an ambient force, so incredibly subtle, yet so
Speaker 2: unimaginably powerful given enough time.
Speaker 3: So true.
Speaker 2: So if the sheer pressure of starlight can dictate the
Speaker 2: extreme angular momentum of the most dense, indestructible objects in
Speaker 2: our solar system, what other invisible, microscopic, thermodynamic or gravitational
Speaker 2: forces are currently operating across the cosmos?
Speaker 3: It really makes you wonder
Speaker 2: What other delicate, highly complex mechanisms are actively shaping, accelerating,
Speaker 2: and destroying the seemingly inert mass at the absolute darkest
Speaker 2: edges of our solar system, completely outside the bounds of
Speaker 2: our current physical models, waiting for a camera sensitive enough
Speaker 2: to finally capture the data.