Speaker 1: Imagine finding something out there in space, something that's actually
generating temperatures hotter than the surface of our own star.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean hotter than five eight hundred kelvin exactly.
Speaker 1: We're not talking about another star or a supernova. We're
talking about an object, an object producing that kind of heat.
And well, that's the core question astrophysicists are wrestling with
right now. Isn't it about this object crossing our solar
system currently called Atlas?
Speaker 2: It really is, And this isn't just some abstract idea.
You know, this is happening now. Alice is going through perihelium,
its closest point to the sun maximum stress, right, and
the data that's coming back it's so statistically improbable it's
really forcing a hard look, maybe even a rewrite of
what we think is possible under physics.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's try and unpack this then, because this isn't
just one weird blip. Is it like instrument error or
some piece of space junk floating by me?
Speaker 2: No at all.
Speaker 1: We've got a pretty solid stack of material here detailing
what's now been confirmed as the get this the ninth
anomaly of this object, this impossible object, ninth nine distinct
things observe data points all piling up, and the combined
chance of them all happening naturally. It just pushes likelihood
way beyond, well beyond comfortable science, right.
Speaker 2: Way beyond this. So our mission today really is to
synthesize these, these nine impossible findings. We need to get
past the headlines and dig into the actual data. Why
is its path weird? Why is its makeup strange? And
now why is its energy output just completely confounding? Because
this moment leading up to this critical observation window in
December twenty twenty five, this could genuinely change how we
understand technology, energy, maybe even life in the universe. Yeah,
so look at the specific points that make you stop
thinking cosmic accident and start wondering about, well, something else.
Speaker 1: In the framework for trying to make sense of all this,
it really comes from astrophysicist a vi Load, doesn't it.
He's been central to this whole thing, absolutelysified Atlas with
the score of four on his scale of technological likelihood,
which sounds it sounds incredibly high for something that should
just be a chunk of ice and dust from the
Orc cloud.
Speaker 2: It's almost unheard of. Yeah, but Lowie's scale is important
because it gives us a structured way to think about this.
It basically says, look, when an object just refuses to
fit any natural model we have, you are scientifically obligated
to at least consider the technological alternative, even if it
feels like sci fi.
Speaker 1: Right. You can't just ignore the data because it's weird, exactly.
Speaker 2: And the core idea is devastatingly simple. Really, if just
one of these nine anomalies is super unlikely, you know,
maybe one in a thousand chants, Okay, what happens when
you get nine of these independent improbable things happening all
at once with the same object.
Speaker 1: The probabilities just compound, don't they. They stack up astronomically.
Speaker 2: Like a physical law in itself. You're layering statistical impossibilities
on top of physical impossibilities.
Speaker 1: And the implications are huge, as we'll see, because we're
using standard mass here to argue that something profoundly non
standard is happening right in our cosmic backyard.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, so let's start with the absolute latest piece
of data, the big one, the one that just hit
yesterday October twenty ninth, twenty twenty five, around seven four
to seven am Eastern time. That was Perihelium.
Speaker 1: Kahelian, Atlas's closest swing by our star. And that's like
Nature's ultimate stress test, isn't it?
Speaker 2: It really is. But here's the immediate problem for US observers. Yeah,
Atlas is completely hidden right now from anty telescope on Earth.
It's been behind the Sun in the glare since solar
conjunction back on October twenty first.
Speaker 1: So if we were only looking from down here, we'd
be totally blind right now, a critical data blackout during
the most interesting part precisely.
Speaker 2: Fortunately, we've got eyes in space. We're relying entirely on
this fleet of Space observatory's position just right.
Speaker 1: Things like Soho Stereoa.
Speaker 2: Exactly, soh the veteran, the nimble Stereoa, and the newer
GO nineteen. They're all designed to look towards the Sun,
and crucially they can see Atlas as it makes that
pass through the glare.
Speaker 1: Okay, so what are they seeing. What's the initial data
telling us.
Speaker 2: Well, the early stuff is already showing a major contradiction.
This is what's being called anomalous brightness and gigantic structure.
Think about the environment there Atlas is getting absolutely blasted
seven hundred and seventy watts per square meter of intense
solar radiation, just cooking it.
Speaker 1: Right. So a normal commet basically a big dirty snowball
from the orc cloud. It should be falling apart.
Speaker 2: It should be sublimating like crazy, breaking up, maybe even
completely disintegrating under that heat and pressure. You'd expect it
to fade, perhaps flare erratically as chunks break off.
Speaker 1: But that's not what's happening. No.
Speaker 2: Instead, these space instruments are seeing a rapid increase in brightness,
and it's far exceeding what you'd expect just from ice
turning to gas, you know, the normal sublimation rate.
Speaker 1: So it's not just melting slowly, it's getting brighter, like
something's powering up.
Speaker 2: It feels less like a melting iceberg losing mass and
more like something has well activated, either externally or internally.
Something's generating more light than simple heating can explain.
Speaker 1: Wow, And the scale of this, this brightness.
Speaker 2: It's enormous. The G nineteen ccr Ie coronograph is detecting
a luminous brightness that extends an incredible three hundred thousand
kilometers around the object.
Speaker 1: Wait, three hundred thousand kilometers, let's get a handle on that.
Speaker 2: That's almost the distance from the Earth of the.
Speaker 1: Moon pretty much.
Speaker 2: So we're talking about a halo of light and energetic
structure around this relatively small object that's comparable in size
to the gap between us and our own moon.
Speaker 1: That's the scale we're dealing with, and it's similar in size, interestingly,
to that carbon dioxide plume they detected back in August.
Speaker 2: I remember that.
Speaker 1: So this isn't just a faint comet tail drifting off.
This is a huge, active sphere of energy output. It
just doesn't compute with basic cometary physics. A natural comet
breaking up might create diffuse light, sure, but not this gigantic,
cohesive luminosity. It points to a mass of sustained release
of energy that just doesn't fit natural processes.
Speaker 2: Which brings us then to the absolute showstopper, the ninth anomaly.
The reason we started with that hook hotter than our star. Yes,
the truly revolutionary data point is the measured color change
atlas now appears distinctly bluer than our Sun's photosphere in
the observations from LASCO and the score one coronagraphs. And
this is where we need to dig into the physics
a bit, because blue sounds simple, but scientifically it's catastrophic
for the natural explanation.
Speaker 1: Okay, lay it out. Why can't a comet near the
sun just look blue? What's the big deal?
Speaker 2: Two main reasons. First, light scattering When sunlight hits dust,
comet dust, any dust that dust tends to absorb bluer
light and scatter the longer, redder wavelengths more effectively. Think
sunset's right. Dust makes things redder.
Speaker 1: Okay, So if it's just reflecting sunlight, it should look reddish,
especially in the Sun's glare exactly.
Speaker 2: The fact that it looks overwhelmingly blue means the light
isn't just scattered sunlight.
Speaker 1: It's generating its own light.
Speaker 2: It has to be, and that leads to the second,
even more profound point, temperature and color. Our Sun's surface,
the photosphere is about five thousand, eight hundred kelvin right.
That temperature produces light that peaks in the yellow green
part of the spectrum. That's why the Sun looks yellowish
white to us. To emit light that's distinctly bluer, an
object has to shift its peak energy output way over
towards shorter higher frequency.
Speaker 1: Wavelegs, blues, indigoes ultraviolet exactly.
Speaker 2: And to do that, according to fundamental physics black body radiation.
Speaker 1: Loss, it has to be hotter, much fader, much much harder.
Speaker 2: We're god can potentially over ten thousand kelvin, maybe significantly higher,
to make the visible light peak in that distinct blue range.
A natural object, even if its surface was boiling off,
should still be way colder than five thousand, eight hundred kelvin.
It would glow dimly, probably reddish.
Speaker 1: So let me get this straight. The Sun, this giant
fusion reactor powering our whole system, is five thousand and
eight hundred calvin, and this object Atlas is emitting light
that requires a temperature significantly higher than that.
Speaker 2: That's the implication.
Speaker 1: The conclusion seems unavoidable. Then this interstellar object must have
some kind of internal energy source that per unit area
maybe is running hotter than the surface of our own star.
Speaker 2: It's a complete scientific mind vendor. And what makes it
even stranger is that earlier observations further out showed Atlas
with a reddish color that made sense warming up like
a normal comet is sudden dramatic shift to blue right
at parhelium. It looks like a signature like maybe an
artificial system activating or ramping up, perhaps to shield itself
from the intense solar radiation.
Speaker 1: It's almost like the ultimate conformation for the technology idea.
You kind of stop looking for natural explanations when the
object starts outshining the star that's hitting it temperature wise.
Speaker 2: Ovulo's conclusion becomes very hard to argue against. At this
point that Atlas seems to employ an internal energy source,
a technology basically, something generating heat and power that surpasses
our star.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: And this is why everyone's scrambling, why Congress is involved
in getting older data like the high rise image is released.
They need every single pixel, every scrap of information to
figure out if this heat source is controlled, if it's steady,
or maybe if it's like I don't know, a desperate
measure by some ancient tech trying to survive this solar passage.
Speaker 1: The energy density alone, it's just beyond anything we can
currently manage, isn't it Farbia Okay, so that ninth anomenaly
the heat that's the absolute latest shocker, But it's really
just the capstone on a whole series of statistical and
physical problems that got Atlas that high score on Lowy's
scale in first place.
Speaker 2: Exactly. The weirdness started way before Perry Elion.
Speaker 1: If we go back, the impossibility really began the moment
we figured out its trajectory. Right, Let's look at the
first four anomalies. These all deal with just pure cosmic mechanics.
How this thing shouldn't even be where it is or
moving how it is.
Speaker 2: We start with anomaly one, the impossible path. Statistically, this
is the first real red flag. Atlas is traveling on
a path that's only five degrees away from the ecliptic plane.
Speaker 1: Okay, the ecliptic plane. Let's use that pool table analogy again.
That's like the flat surface where all the planets roll
around the sun. Right. Our solar system is remarkably flat
if you look at it edge on.
Speaker 2: It is so when an object comes visiting from another
star system thousands of light years away, it should arrive
from a totally random direction, like throwing.
Speaker 1: A ball into the room, from anywhere above below the side, exactly.
Speaker 2: It should be just as likely to come perpendicular to
the table or at a forty five degree angle or whatever.
The chance of it happening to arrive within that very
thin five degrees slice of the sky right where all
the planets are that should be really low.
Speaker 1: It's like threading a needle from across the cosmos.
Speaker 2: Pretty much. The calculated probability of this alignment happening just
by chance is only about point two percent. Tiny.
Speaker 1: Okay, but let me play Devil's advocate here for a second.
Couldn't the Sun's gravity, or maybe Jupiter's huge gravity, kind
of pull things towards the ecliptic over billions of years.
Is it possible this isn't a new visitor, but something
that got nudged into alignment long ago.
Speaker 2: That's a fair question and something scientists definitely consider for
objects within our Solar System. But it doesn't work for
Atlas because it's moving too fast. We know it's interstellar
because its trajectory is hyperbolic. It's not captured, it has
escape velocity. It's just passing through.
Speaker 1: Ah Okay, So it hasn't been hanging around long enough
for gravity to slowly herd it into the plane exactly.
Speaker 2: For a fly by object like this, there just hasn't
been enough time for gravitational nudges to create such a
precise alignment, so that zero point two percent probability it stands,
which means it's either a massive coincidence or well maybe
it was aimed, perhaps for easier access to the planets
or better.
Speaker 1: Observation, intentional aiming. Okay, that leads nicely into anomaly too.
The jet that breaks physics. This was seen back in
the summer July and August twenty twenty five, and this
one is just visually baffling. It created a jet of
material pointing straight towards the Sun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this one just flies in the face of basic
commet science. Every comet we've ever seen, every single one,
develops tails that point away from the.
Speaker 1: Sun, always because the Sun's light and particles are pushing
the dust and gas away, right like a constant wind
blowing from the Sun.
Speaker 2: Precisely, solar radiation pressure and the solar wind create this
relentless outflow. So no matter which way the comet itself
is moving, its tail streams behind it relative to the Sun.
Speaker 1: So it's like running into a strong headwind and your
hair inexplicably flies forward into the wind instead of backward.
Speaker 2: That's the perfect analogy. It absolutely defies the known physics
of momentum transfer from the Sun. This jet pointing towards
the Sun means something was actively pushing material against that
solar wind and radiation pressure.
Speaker 1: Which implies what some kind of internal force.
Speaker 2: It implies either a massive counter force we don't understand,
or some kind of non standard ejection mechanism. Maybe it
was intentional venting, or possibly some kind of artificial repulsion system,
maybe something designed to stabilize it or even adjust its
course against the Sun's push.
Speaker 1: If it's natural, it suggests a force stronger than the
Sun's radiation pressure acting outward from the object, which is
unheard of for.
Speaker 2: Comments completely and if you lean towards the artificial idea
like a repulsion system, that.
Speaker 1: Means controlled thrust, which is technology by.
Speaker 2: Definition absolutely and the energy needed to maintain a jet
of that apparent size against the full force of the
Sun's radiation at that distance, it's staggering. It really shifts
the conversation away from weird physics towards possible engineering.
Speaker 1: Okay, moving on to size and speed. Anominally three too
big and too fast. Usually expect big things to move slower, right,
especially when they get kicked out of star systems.
Speaker 2: Generally yes, and Alice is just monstrous compared to the
other interstellar visitors we've seen. It's estimated to be a
million times more massive than a million times and maybe
a thousand times larger than Borisov, the other confirmed interstellar comet.
Yet despite being this absolute giant, it's moving faster than
similar objects we've tracked entering our system, so.
Speaker 1: That analogy holds. It's like seeing a massive semi truck
somehow overtaking sleek race cars on the interstellar highway. It
just feels wrong.
Speaker 2: It does feel wrong. From a physics perspective. The way
objects usually get ejected from their home star systems involves
gravitational slingshots, often during the chaotic early stages of system
formation or later interactions. Getting a truly massive object like
Atlas accelerated to such high interstellar speeds requires an incredibly
powerful gravitational kick. Usually it's the smaller, lighter objects that
get flung out the fastest.
Speaker 1: So for Atlas to be both huge and fast.
Speaker 2: It suggests it experienced an exceptionally violent ejection event, maybe
something involving multiple stars or even a black hole or again,
the alternative is that its speed isn't purely from its origin.
Maybe it has some form.
Speaker 1: Of propulsion, so it carries this excess kinetic energy for
its size. What natural event could even do that. You
mentioned black holes, maybe dense star clusters.
Speaker 2: Those are the kinds of extreme environments you might need.
But usually those scenarios would leave other clues, maybe in
its composition or spin, that we're not necessarily seeing with Alice.
Sticking with the technology idea for a moment, it implies
some kind of engine capable of sustained thrust over vast
interstellar distances to build up or maintain that speed.
Speaker 1: It's an engine, okay. And then still under cosmo mechanics,
we have anomaly four two. Perfect timing. This one feels
less about physics and more about well cosmic choreography.
Speaker 2: It's about incredibly improbable timing. Yeah, Atlice arrived on a
trajectory that allowed it to make relatively close passes by Mars,
then Venus, and also.
Speaker 1: Jupiter, like an interstellar grandeur, hitting three major planets in sequence.
Speaker 2: Exactly. It's suggest this sort of pre planned itinerary. Almost
it's got close enough to potentially observe or interact gravitationally
with three very different, very significant planetary bodies.
Speaker 1: But here's the kicker, Right, while it hits all these landmarks,
it manages to stay hidden from Earth, completely invisible from
ground telescopes during its most critical phase perihelion.
Speaker 2: It's like the tourist who meticulously visits London, Paris and Rome,
but somehow completely avoids setting foot in any of the
main airports or train stations where the big security cameras are.
Speaker 1: That analogy works really well.
Speaker 2: The precision timing needed to hit those three planetary fly
by windows and still maintain this specific path that hides
it during perihelion. Avilo calculates the odds as being incredibly low,
rareer than winning a major lottery statistically.
Speaker 1: So it fuels that theory again, maybe a preset route
designed for optimal data gathering, or maybe even using gravitational
assists from the planets to conserve fuel while minimizing direct
observation from Earth at the key moment.
Speaker 2: It's another layer of coincidence that's just really hard to
swallow as purely random chance, especially when you pile it
on top of the weird trajectory the impossible jet and
the excessive speed.
Speaker 1: Okay, so we've got an object that flies where it shouldn't,
moves faster than it should, pushes back against the sun.
Now let's look inside. Chemically speaking, let's talk about its
actual makeup, starting with anomaly five factor composition.
Speaker 2: This one, the spectral analysis. It feels almost relatable in
a strange way because it connects to our own industry.
How So, when scientists analyze the light coming off Atlas
to figure out what metals it contains, they found something
really unusual. It has significantly more nickel than iron.
Speaker 1: More nickel than iron. Okay, that sounds like just a
ratio difference, But why is that a big deal? Why
does that scream industrial like the sources suggest.
Speaker 2: Because in nature, when planets where asteroids or comets form
from the primordial disc of gas and dust around the star,
you expect metals to be present based roughly on their
cosmic abundance. Iron is generally much more abundant than nickel, so.
Speaker 1: You'd expect more iron naturally, like a random scoop from
the cosmic parts.
Speaker 2: Bit exactly, you'd expect a kind of soup of cosmic
ingredients reflecting what was available, but a composition heavily weighted
towards nickel over iron. That's characteristic of alloys we make
on Earth deliberately, ah.
Speaker 1: Like stainless steel or specialized alloys.
Speaker 2: Precisely we add nickel to iron to make alloys stronger,
more resistant to corrosion, more stable under extreme temperatures and stress.
Think about building something meant to last for potentially millions
of years, traveling through harsh interstellar space, surviving intense heat.
Speaker 1: You wouldn't just use raw iron. You'd engineer an alloy.
You'd pick a specific recipe for durability.
Speaker 2: That's the implication. Atlas seems to have this specific recipe,
suggesting careful material selection, not just random accretion of space dust.
It points towards manufacturing, towards materials chosen for a purpose.
Speaker 1: That feels like a really strong piece of evidence. It
shifts the whole idea from natural rock to engineered structure.
Speaker 2: Okay, next up, anominally six dry as a desert. This
one seems to attack the very definition of what we
thought Atlas might be. It really does. When we call
something an interstellar comet, that name comes with baggage. It
implies a dirty snowball.
Speaker 1: Right comments are supposed to be mostly ice, aren't they
water ice frozen gases?
Speaker 2: Traditionally yes, Comets in our solar system are typically eighty
to ninety percent water ice. That's the volatile stuff that
turns to gas when it gets near the sun, creating
the coma and the tails we see.
Speaker 1: But Atlas it completely fails that test utterly.
Speaker 2: Observations indicate Atlas has only about four percent water content,
maybe even less. It's drier than many deserts on Earth.
Speaker 1: Four percent. That's practically nothing for a comet.
Speaker 2: It basically defies the definition. It suggests this object is
overwhelmingly made of rock, metal, or maybe some kind of complex,
non volatile material we don't usually see in comets. It's
like finding an iceberg that turns out to be made
almost entirely of granite.
Speaker 1: Which, thinking back, actually helps explain why it might have
survived perihelium. Right, if it's mostly rock and metal, it
won't just vaporize and fall apart like an icy comet
wood under that intense heat.
Speaker 2: Exactly. It provides structural integrity, and if it's not relying
on water sublimation for its activity, then that huge three
hundred thousand kilometer luminous structure.
Speaker 1: We talked about the one seen at perihelium.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that must be generated by something else. Maybe it's
outgasing carbon dioxide, which was detected earlier, or perhaps more likely,
given that weird blue light anomaly, maybe its intense heat
being actively vented from some kind of internal reactor or
power system housed inside that tough dry shell.
Speaker 1: Wow, Okay, the dryness points back to the heat source.
It all connects now. Anomaly seven impossible polarized light. This
sounds a bit more technical, but you said it's like
a unique fingerprint.
Speaker 2: It is in a way. Polarization is about how light
waves vibrate. Normally, light vibrates in all directions perpendicular to
its travel path, but when light reflects or scatters off
a surface, it can become polarized, meaning the vibrations tend
to line up more in one.
Speaker 1: Direction, like how polarized sunglasses work. They block the glare
the horizontally polarized light reflecting off roads.
Speaker 2: Or water exactly like that. The sunglasses have vertical filters
that block the horizontal vibrations. Now, in space, when sunlight
scatters off different surfaces, ice, grains, dust, particles, rocky surfaces.
The way the light becomes polarized. The amount in the
angle depends very specifically on the material's texture, composition, maybe
even grain.
Speaker 1: Size, so different surfaces have different polarization signatures that.
Speaker 2: It's like a fingerprint. Scientists measure the polarization of the
light scattering off Atlas, and the pattern they've found doesn't
match any known natural object in our databases.
Speaker 1: None at all. Not other comets, not asteroids.
Speaker 2: Nothing, nothing, not even the other interstellar comet Borisov, which
was also studied for polarization. Atlas has a polarization signature
that seems to be completely unique in the natural world
as far as we know. What could cause that well,
there are two main possibilities. Either Atlas is coded in
some kind of exotic material that simply doesn't exist naturally
in observed space, or maybe more tellingly, it isn't like
natural random dust or rock. Maybe it has a very smooth,
perhaps even artificially structured or machine surface. A highly ordered
surface like polished metal or composite panels would polarize light
very differently than a jumble of natural dust grains.
Speaker 1: So the unique polarization could be evidence of a manufactured
surface texture.
Speaker 2: It's a strong possibility. It points away from randomness and
towards something potentially ordered, engineered.
Speaker 1: Okay, And finally, in this section on composition and characteristics,
we have anomaly eight connection to the nineteen seventy seven mystery.
This one feels almost eerie.
Speaker 2: It's the historical echo the potential synchronicity. Atlas arrived in
our solar system from the exact same patch of sky
as the famous Wow signal detected back in nineteen.
Speaker 1: Seventy seven, the Wow signal that's often cited as the best,
albeit brief, candidate for an extraterrestrial radio transmission we've ever
picked up right.
Speaker 2: It is a powerful, narrow band, seventy two second burst
of radio waves from the direction of Sagittarius, detected by
the Big Year Radio Telescope. It matched exactly what you
might expect from an artificial, non natural beacon, and it
has never been detected again despite many searches.
Speaker 1: So now almost fifty years later, this incredibly anomalous object
Atlas shows up coming from that same cosmic address, exactly.
Speaker 2: The same direction. Yeah, two completely unique, highly strange events,
separated by nearly half a century, both pointing back to
the same spot in the cosmos.
Speaker 1: The probability of that being a coincidence extremely light.
Speaker 2: Abiloh and others argue you simply cannot dismiss this directional link,
especially when you add it to the pile of the
other seven anomalies we just discussed. It immediately makes you
wonder about a shared origin.
Speaker 1: Could the Wow signal have been related to whatever civilization
might have launched Atlas, or maybe Atlas as the follow up,
like an intentional probe sent along the same path as
a prior signal.
Speaker 2: Those are the speculations it fuels for decades. The Wow
signal was this tantalizing, frustrating mystery, interesting but ultimately unverified,
a one off event. But now you have this massive,
potentially manufactured object tracing its exact path through space. It
forces you scientifically to recontextualize that nineteen seventy seven event.
Maybe it wasn't just noise, Maybe it was the prelude.
Speaker 1: It connects the dots in a really provocative way. These
nine anomalies aren't just separate weird facts. They seem to
weave together into a narrative, don't they.
Speaker 2: They build a cumulative case, a case suggesting something beyond
random chance, potentially pointing towards design intent and maybe even
a link to a decade's old mystery.
Speaker 1: So okay, let's just pause and take stock. We've got
the impossible path, the jet defying solar wind, the excessive
speed for its size, the weird industrial like composition, the
extreme dryness, the unique light polarization, the connection to the
WOW signal, and now this new discovery energy output hotter
than our Sun's surface. Nine distinct anomalies.
Speaker 2: Nine strikes against the purely natural explanation.
Speaker 1: And this is where we get to what you call
the probability. Because individually, maybe you could try to explain
away one or two as extreme outliers or unknown physics.
But all nine together, that's.
Speaker 2: When the math becomes overwhelming. When you multiply the low
probabilities of each independent anomaly occurring by chance, the combined
likelihood of all nine happening naturally in a single object,
it drops to less than one part in ten quadrillion.
Speaker 1: One in wows ten quadrillion. That's one fallen by sixteen zeros.
Speaker 2: Yes, all right, one in ten billion.
Speaker 1: If you want to you the listener, to really grasp
that number. The sources use this analogy that just hammers
it home. It is statistically more likely that you would
win a major lottery fifteen times in.
Speaker 2: A row, fifteen consecutive wins.
Speaker 1: Than it is for Atlas. With all these features to
be just a random natural phenomenon. We are so far
outside the realm of normal statistical noise here it's almost absurd.
Speaker 2: It really pushes the boundary of what science can comfortably
dismiss as chance. It forces the alternative hypoth this is
the technological one, onto the table much more seriously.
Speaker 1: And this incredible improbability it must make the missed mapping
opportunity feel even more frustrating for scientists like.
Speaker 2: Lowis oh immensely. He calculated that if Earth had been
on the opposite side of its orbit just six months ago,
Atlas would have passed much closer to us, only about
fifty four million kilometers.
Speaker 1: Away, which sounds far, but in space terms, that's practically nextdoor,
isn't it. What could we have done at that.
Speaker 2: Distance at fifty four million kilometers? It changes the game entirely.
Our most powerful planetary radar systems, instruments like a receibo
used to have where goldstone could have pinged it, we
could have bounced radio waves off it and gotten detailed.
Speaker 1: Echoes back, and that would tell us.
Speaker 2: It would give us direct, unambiguous measurements of its size,
its precise rotation rate, and crucially, we could have built
up three dimensional radar images of its actual shape as
it tumbled or rotated.
Speaker 1: So we'd know if it looked like a lumpy potato
like most asteroids, or if it looked like something else,
something structured, maybe symmetric.
Speaker 2: Exactly. We'd have photographic evidence essentially of its geometry. Was
it irregular and natural looking or did it have facets,
sharp edges, signs of being constructed. That close pass would
have answered so many questions definitively.
Speaker 1: But because of where Earth is now, even the December
closest approach, it's still too far for effective radar mapping.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, Yes, the signal attenuation is too great, so we're
stuck relying on optical light, spectral analysis thermal readings, which
tell us a lot about composition and energy, but much
less about fine structural details. It's like trying to figure
out the shape of a ship through binoculars.
Speaker 1: In the fog, which makes the global monitoring effort Right now,
during an immediately after perihelion. Absolutely critical. Every photon counts.
Speaker 2: Every second of data is potentially revolutionary. We have this
narrow window where it's close to the Sun, potentially active,
but still hidden from Earth. The space telescopes are our
only eyes.
Speaker 1: Can we just quickly run through who's watching? What specific
instruments are are locked onto ALIS?
Speaker 2: Right now? Sure? First you've got Stereo A. It's been
out there since two thousand and six in an orbit
slightly faster than Earth's. It's using its HI one and
CR two cameras. Because of its position ahead of Earth,
it gets a unique side view almost of the solar
wind interacting with Atlas really important for understanding that weird
jet behavior.
Speaker 1: Okay, Stereoa. Who else?
Speaker 2: Then there's the old, reliable so HO, the Solar and
Heliospheric Observatory, launched way back in nineteen ninety five. It
sits at the l one point between US and the Sun.
Its LASCO coronagraphs. How the instrument is providing that continuous
stream of data, the ones that first spotted that shocking
blue color shift. SO is like the bedrock of this
observation campaign. The workhorse definitely, and finally this comer GEO nineteen.
This is actually a geostationary weather satellite launched in twenty
twenty four, but it carries an advanced coronograph called CCR one.
Being geostationary makes it incredibly stable, which is proving vital
for resolving the fine details of that enormous three hundred
thousand kilometer luminous clad out or structure around Atlas.
Speaker 1: Right now, So three major space assets coordinating observations. What
are they looking for specifically? Beyond just brightness and color.
Speaker 2: They're looking for any sign of active control or non
natural behavior, things like sudden, deliberate course changes, even tiny ones,
any indication it might be releasing smaller objects, many probes,
maybe listening intently for any kind of radio transmissions, looking
for flashes of artificial light, or pinpointing specific areas of
excess heat that might indicate active engines or systems venting.
Speaker 1: Energy, Hunting for the smoking gun of technology.
Speaker 2: Basically that's the goal. Yeah, And all this intense observation,
this global mobilization, is all building towards the December climax,
that's when Atlas finally swims back into view for us
here on Earth.
Speaker 1: Do you need historical window exactly.
Speaker 2: Atlas is predicted to start emerging from the Sun's glare
and become visible in terrestrial telescopes, probably low in the
twilight sky around December nineteenth, twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: And that date is significant.
Speaker 2: Why because it also happens to its closest approach to Earth.
On this pass. It won't be radar close, but it
will be optimally positioned for our most powerful ground based
and space based optical telescopes.
Speaker 1: So come mid December, it's showtime.
Speaker 2: It's absolute peak focus. You're going to have the Hubbles
based telescope, the James Web Space Telescope, dozens of the
world's largest ground based observatories, all of them pivoting staring
intently at that one specific point in the sky, waiting
to see what emerges.
Speaker 1: Every astronomer on the planet will be watching.
Speaker 2: And based on the data coming in now from Perihelium,
the prediction is that Atlas might actually emerge from the
Sun's glare even brighter than it was going.
Speaker 1: In after being roasted.
Speaker 2: If that holds true, if it didn't just survive perihelium
but actually increased its energy output, well, that would strongly
suggest whatever internal power system is responsible for that blue light,
and the huge plume didn't just withstand the solar onslought,
it actively compensated, maybe even thrive.
Speaker 1: That would be well, probably the final nail on the
coffin for the natural explanation, wouldn't it.
Speaker 2: It would make it extraordinarily difficult to explain naturally. It
would be perhaps the clearer sign yet of active resilient
technology hashtag take outro.
Speaker 1: And so, after running through all nine of these anomalies,
this incredible chain of impossibilities, where does that leave us?
It feels like we're standing right at a massive fork
in the scientific road fundament of dichonomy on one path,
If Atlas is an engineered object, if it really possesses
technology that can generate energy hotter than our Sun's surface
five eight hundred kelvin, then whoever built it has mastered
physics and engineering far beyond anything we can even properly
conceive of right now. And this wouldn't just be speculation anymore.
This would be it the first definitive, tangible proof of
advanced extraterrestrial technology right here in our own solar system.
Speaker 2: The implications are almost too vast to grasp immediately But
then there's the.
Speaker 1: Other path, the alternative. What if somehow, against odds of
ten quadrillion to one, This is what if all nine
impossibilities can eventually be explained by some complex, undiscovered natural processes.
Speaker 2: If that's the case, if Atlas turns out to be
some kind of hyper extreme physics defying natural object, a
supercomet formed in a way we never imagine, then this
single object will completely revolutionize our understanding of astrophysics. It
will force us to rewrite textbooks on star formation, planetary science,
the behavior of matter under extreme conditions. Everything changes.
Speaker 1: So either way, whether it's alien engineers or brand new physics,
our view of the universe and maybe our place within
it is about to be profoundly.
Speaker 2: Altered, shattered. Perhaps there's really no outcome here where science
just shrugs and moves on.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: December twenty twenty five, regardless of the final answer, will
go down in history. It's the month humanity got its
best ever look at potentially answering that oldest, most fundamental question.
Are we alone?
Speaker 1: And the immediacy is key, isn't it. This isn't some
ancient artifact found buried some way where, or a faint
signal from light years away that could be debated forever.
This is happening now. A potentially technological object is actively
crossing our solar system right now, forcing us to confront
its impossible nature.
Speaker 2: It demands attention, and that leads to maybe one final
provocative thought for you, a listener to chew on. If
Alice is technological, the mere fact that its energy source
seems to run hotter than our Sun implies a mastery
of energy generation and containment that just blows our current
science away. Forget bulky fusion reactors like it. This is
just something far more compact, efficient and powerful.
Speaker 1: Energy density beyond our dreams.
Speaker 2: Exactly, So think about it. What other technologies things we
currently consider pure science fiction might become possible for a
civilization that can routinely harness power hotter than its own star.
Things like maybe practical interstellar travel becomes trivial, perhaps manipulating
space time itself, controlling gravity. We simply don't know, but
the evidence for that level of energy mastery might be
exactly what's about to emerge from behind the Sun in December.
We might be about to get our first glimpse of
technologies that operate on principles we haven't even discovered yet.