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Speaker 1: Welcome to the deep dive. Today, we're tackling something truly

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mind bending, an object hurtling through our solar system at

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one hundred and thirty seven thousand miles per hour. It's

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from another star system, and frankly, it's causing chaos. It's

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forcing scientists to well rethink some fundamental laws of the universe.

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Speaker 2: He really is. This isn't just a thought experiment.

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Speaker 3: We're talking about hard data here, thousands upon thousands of

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observations of this object. Its official name is three I

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less and when you put all that data together, it

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just doesn't add up with our standard models.

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Speaker 1: It's the kind of thing that probably keeps astrophysicists a wake.

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Speaker 3: At night, right absolutely, because every time you think you've

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figured out one weird thing about it, two more inconsistencies

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pop up.

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Speaker 2: It defies easy explanation.

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Speaker 1: And the reason we're diving deep today October third, twenty

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twenty five is because the implications are well enormous. AVI

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who you know, it's very prominent, sometimes controversial ascrophysicist.

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Speaker 2: Very respective though in many circles.

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Speaker 1: Right, he's actually put a number on it. He's rated

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the likelihood of this visitor being technological in origin at

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a six out of.

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Speaker 2: Ten sixty percent.

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Speaker 3: That's not a trivial number coming from someone like him,

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and it's not based on speculation. It's rooted entirely in

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the physics and the chemistry we're seeing, which is what

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we want to unpack today.

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Speaker 1: Exactly. A sixty percent confidence rating is basically saying, look,

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the natural explanations we have, they're starting to look pretty shaky.

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Speaker 3: We've pulled together everything we can find, the spectral analysis

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from James Web, from the very large telescope, crucial orbital

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tracking data. It's a mountain of information.

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Speaker 1: So our mission today is to sift through that mountain.

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We want to go past the headlines and really dig

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into the specific data points that are causing all this friction.

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The statistical problems like why should this thing even be here?

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The chemical signatures that seem well impossible according to standard

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cosmic chemistry, and the timing of its path just suspiciously convenient.

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Speaker 3: You could say it's much more than just a peculiar commet.

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It feels like an object that actively challenging several pillars

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of astrophysics.

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Speaker 2: All it wants.

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Speaker 1: Okay, let's get into it. Let's unpack this cosmic mystery.

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All right, let's start with the basics. We know three

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it tells is fast, but its size and mass that's

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where the first big red flag goes up. We've got

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what over four thousand observations now.

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Speaker 3: Yes, compiled from over two hundred observatories across the globe,

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a massive effort, and they all point towards an object

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that's incredibly massive, so massive in fact, that its discovery

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kind of breaks statistics.

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Speaker 1: How massive were we talking?

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Speaker 3: The calculations based on how it's moving and how it's

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resisting forces that should be disrupting it. Give us a

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lower limit, a minimum mass of about thirty three billion.

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Speaker 1: Tons thirty three billion tons billion.

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Speaker 2: With a B.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that translates to a solid nucleus, the core of

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the object being at least five kilometers in diameter, probably larger.

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Speaker 1: Okay, put that in perspective. How does that compare it

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to other interstellar visitors we've seen.

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Speaker 2: Well, that's the thing.

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Speaker 3: The only two others we've confirmed were Umamua and comet Borisov.

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Umuah is maybe a few hundred meters long, Borisov perhaps

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a kilometer across at the very most. This object three

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eyed class is potentially three to five orders of magnitude

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more massive.

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Speaker 1: That's that's not just bigger, that's a completely different category

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of objects exactly.

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Speaker 3: It's like, you know, our models predict finding pebbles and

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maybe the occasional baseball rolling through from interstellar space, and

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instead the third thing we find is a Mount Everest.

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Speaker 1: It completely messes with our expectations, doesn't it? Finding something

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this big this soon?

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Speaker 2: It does?

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Speaker 3: This leads us straight into the statistical problem. Our understanding

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of the stuff floating between stars, interstellar dust, ice rocks

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suggests a predictable sized distribution. It's called a power law. Basically,

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there should be lots and lots of tiny things, fewer

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medium sized things, and extremely vanishingly few really big things.

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Speaker 1: Makes sense, like sand versus boulders on a beach.

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Speaker 3: Precisely so, according to that power law, over and based

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on the number of small objects like umuhmoah, we should

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be deta.

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Speaker 2: We'd expect to.

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Speaker 3: Find roughly one hundred thousand of those smaller ones before

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we had a statistically reasonable chance of stumbling upon one

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single object as massive as three I tell.

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Speaker 1: Us one hundred thousand. We found two small ones before

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this giant.

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Speaker 3: Correct Umumoua and Borisov, and then Boom number three is

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the behemoth.

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Speaker 2: It's like, as you said.

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Speaker 3: Earlier, buying three lottery tickets in your life and hitting

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the jackpot on the third one.

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Speaker 1: So either we are absurdly astronomically lucky, or.

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Speaker 3: Our understanding of how much massive debris is actually out

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there between the stars is fundamentally wrong. Maybe the Milky

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Way is just littered with these five kilometer plus rogue

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objects and we had no idea.

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Speaker 1: Neither of those options sounds particularly comforting. Both point to

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a pretty big gap in our knowledge.

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Speaker 2: They do. It's a major puzzle just based on its existence.

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But then you look at its path, right.

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Speaker 1: The sheer size is one statistical headache. But then there's

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the projectory coincidence where it came from where it's going.

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Speaker 2: That's weird, too, extremely weird.

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Speaker 3: Okay, So it's on a retrograde orbit moving backwards compared

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to the planets. That part isn't unusual for an interstellar object.

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It suggests it wasn't born in our system, okay, But

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its inclination, it's tilt relative to the flat plane of

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the Solar System is about one hundred and seventy five

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degrees one.

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Speaker 1: Hundred and seventy five degrees. So if one hundred and

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eighty degrees is perfectly flat with the ecliptic plane where

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the planet's orbit, it's almost exactly aligned.

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Speaker 2: Almost perfectly aligned. That's the key think about it.

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Speaker 3: Space is three dimensional, right, Objects coming from interstellar space

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should arrive from random directions, diving in from high above,

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swooping up from below, hitting at all sorts of angles, like.

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Speaker 1: Throwing darts at a board from all around the room,

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not just aiming straight exactly.

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Speaker 3: The mathematical probability of an interstellar object just happening to

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arrive on a path that's so precisely aligned with our

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Solar system's flat plane, it's calculated to be only about one.

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Speaker 2: In five hundred.

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Speaker 1: Okay, one in five hundred, not impossible odds, But he

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raises an eyebrow.

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Speaker 2: It does.

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Speaker 3: But wait, there's more. It's not just that it's aligned

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with the ecliptic plane. Its specific path within that plane

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is bringing it unusually close to multiple planets. It's making

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a close approach to Mars today, and it's headed for

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a close encounter with Jupiter next year.

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Speaker 1: So it's not just hitting the dark board. It's hitting

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the bullseye and the triple twenty on the same throw.

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Speaker 3: Kind of Yeah, a truly random trajectory is unlikely to

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hit that flat plane and line up perfectly for multiple

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planetary flybys like this. It feels optimized, optimized What do

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you mean, well, Avilo used the phrase remarkable fine tuning.

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If you were hypothetically designing an interstellar mission to scout

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our solar system, you'd want to be efficient. You wouldn't

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want to waste energy on big course corrections. You'd calculate

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a path that uses gravity assists and hits multiple targets

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with minimal effort. And the best way to do that

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align with the ecliptic plane.

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Speaker 1: So you're saying its path looks less like a random

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cosmic accident and more like, well, like it was planned.

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Speaker 3: The data is consistent with that interpretation. The trajectory looks

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engineered for observation. Whether it is engineered is the big question,

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of course.

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Speaker 1: Okay, but hang on, this thing is also a comet, right.

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It's spewing out gas and dust like crazy. Doesn't that

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mess up any kind of precise path that brings us

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to the non gravitational paradox, doesn't.

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Speaker 2: It It certainly should. That's the paradox.

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Speaker 3: Commets, by their nature are not perfectly predictable just based

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on gravity. As they get near the sun, ices vaporized subliment,

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turning directly into.

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Speaker 1: Gas, right, they become little rockets.

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Speaker 3: Exactly, And because the commet's nucleus isn't perfectly uniform, the

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jets of gas spray out unevenly stronger on one side,

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maybe weaker on another. This creates a tiny, persistent push,

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a thrust. It's called non gravitational acceleration. It nudges the

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comet off the path gravity alone would dictate.

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Speaker 1: And we know three it Lists is very active. The

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James Webspace Telescope measured it, losing what was the.

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Speaker 3: Number, and astonishing one hundred and twenty nine kilograms of

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carbon dioxide every second. That's a huge amount of gas

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erupting off its surface. That should be acting like a

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pretty significant rocket engine pushing it around.

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Speaker 1: So it should be deviating noticeably from a purely gravitational path.

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Speaker 3: Absolutely, even moderately active commets we see typically deviate by

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hundreds of meters per day because of this effect.

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Speaker 2: But here's the kicker.

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Speaker 3: When astronomers tracked three iyatlas using those thousands of observations,

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they found its deviation from a purely gravity driven path

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was incredibly small, less than fifteen meters per day squared.

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Speaker 1: Less than fifteen meters. That's almost nothing compared to the

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amount of gasets viewing.

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Speaker 3: It's practically zero within the measurement uncertainties. It's showing almost

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no non gravitational acceleration despite this massive visible outgassing.

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Speaker 1: How is that possible. It's firing its engines, but it's

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not moving off course.

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Speaker 3: It's resisting the push. And the only way an object

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can resist that kind of continuous force from outgassing is

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if the object itself is incredibly massive and dense.

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Speaker 1: Ah, So this observation actually reinforce is the huge mass.

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Speaker 3: Calculation precisely that thirty three billion ton minimum mass isn't

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just based on its discovery. It's required to explain why

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the outgassing isn't throwing it off course. If three ilis

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were a typical commet, often described as a loosely bound

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rubble pile of ice and dust, it would be.

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Speaker 1: Getting pushed around significantly or maybe even torn apart by

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that much outgassing.

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Speaker 3: Exactly, the fact that it's holding together and sticking so

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closely to its gravitational path demands that it be a solid, coherent,

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and extremely massive body.

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Speaker 1: Okay, let's just pause and absorb that. Statistically, it's way

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too big to be found this easily. Its path is

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suspiciously aligned and optimized like one in five hundred odds

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or worse. And despite acting like a powerful rocket, it's

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so massive and dense it barely budges off course.

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Speaker 3: That's the physical picture. Yeah, a complete anomaly based on

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gravity and statistics alone.

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Speaker 1: All right, If the physics is already making our head spin,

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let's turn to its composition, because the chemistry seems to

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be just as baffling, if noth so baffling is.

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Speaker 2: A good word for it.

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Speaker 3: If the physics were just strange, The chemistry seems to

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actively defy what we know about how the universe builds things.

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And the first major shock wave came from the nickel

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without iron bombshell.

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Speaker 1: Okay, nickel without iron. This came from the very large

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telescope observations. What did they see exactly?

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Speaker 3: They were looking at the light spectrum from the gas cloud,

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the coma surrounding the nucleus. As the ices sublimate, they

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carry traces of heavier elements off the surface with them,

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and the VLT detected very clear, strong emission lines, unambiguous

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signals of neutral nickel atoms streaming away from the object.

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Speaker 1: Nickel. Okay, that seems specific. What's the problem.

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Speaker 3: The problem is what wasn't there in that same plume

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of gas. There was absolutely no detectable trace of iron,

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none whatsoever.

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Speaker 1: And why is finding nickel without iron such a big deal?

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Aren't they just metals?

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Speaker 3: Ah? But in cosmic terms, they're practically inseparable twins. Nickel

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and iron are forged together in the hearts of dying

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massive stars during supernova explosion. That's the main process supernova

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nuclear synthesis.

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Speaker 1: They're made in the same stellar furnace at the same time.

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Speaker 3: Exactly, so when the star explodes, it spews both nickel

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and iron out into the interstellar medium together. They travel together,

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they condense into dust grains together, and they get incorporated

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into new stars. Planets, asteroids, comets always together and usually

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in fairly predictable ratios.

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Speaker 1: So every natural space rock we've ever looked at.

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Speaker 3: Has both every single one. Meteorites found on Earth asteroids.

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We've visited comets from our own solar system. They all

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contain both iron and nickel. Finding nickel without iron in

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a natural object arriving from interstellar space, it's not just unexpected,

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it fundamentally contradicts our understanding of cosmic chemical evolution.

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Speaker 1: The analogy used was like finding smoke without fire.

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Speaker 3: It's a perfect analogy. You simply don't get one without

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the other in a natural cosmic setting. They are chemically

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bound by their shared origin.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so if it's not natural, where do you find

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nick separated from iron?

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Speaker 3: Well, that's where it gets really uncomfortable for astronomers. The

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only place we know of where nickel is routinely and

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deliberately separated from iron is here on Earth in industrial.

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Speaker 1: Processes, industrial like manufacturing.

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Speaker 3: Precisely, think about creating high purity nickel for specialized applications

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superllois for jet engines, specific electronic components, aerospace parts where

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you need nickels heat resistance or specific properties, but you

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want to avoid iron's magnetic characteristics or weight. That requires

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industrial refining to separate the cosmic twins.

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Speaker 1: So the chemical signature seen coming off three ilch matches

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factory production, not a natural comet.

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Speaker 3: The signature is consistent with an industrially refined material. That's

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the uncomfortable truth the data presents.

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Speaker 1: Wow. And wasn't there something about the amount of nickel changing?

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Speaker 2: Yes, that's another strange detail.

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Speaker 3: VLT observation showed that the rate of nickel emission wasn't constant.

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It increased dramatically by a factor of twenty five between

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their observations in late July.

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Speaker 1: In late August, twenty five times more nickel just a

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month later. What does that suggest?

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Speaker 3: It suggests something is being systematically exposed or vaporized as

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the object gets closer to the sun and heats up.

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If you imagine say an outer layer or coating containing

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this purified nickel, as the solar radiation intensifies, it's burning

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off that layer more and more rapidly.

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Speaker 1: Did scientists try to find a natural explanation for this

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nickel only signature, Oh?

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Speaker 2: Absolutely.

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Speaker 3: The immediate reaction was to look for some exotic natural

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chemical process. One idea proposed was maybe the nickel was

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locked up in extremely volatile compounds like nickel carbonyl that

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could somehow survive for billions of years in the cold

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of interstellar space and then break apart easily in sunlight,

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releasing the pure nickel.

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Speaker 1: Okay, seems like a long shot, but possible.

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Speaker 3: Well, here's the problem with that idea. Iron forms very

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similar volatile compounds, iron carbonyls. If the conditions existed out

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there that allowed nickel carbonyl to survive and be delivered intact,

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then iron carbonal should have survived two And if that

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broke down in sunlight, we should be seeing iron alongside

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the nickel.

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Speaker 1: But we're not.

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Speaker 2: We are not. Only the nickel showed up.

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Speaker 3: So even the proposed natural explanation seems to fall short.

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It points back to something specific, something artificial, almost an

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industrial ghost in the machine, so to speak.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so the metal content is bizarre. What about the

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actual comet part, the ice and gas that leads at

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the dry ice comet idea?

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Speaker 3: Right, Yes, if the nickel wasn't strange enough, the composition

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of the main gas plume, measured by the James Webb

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Space Telescope, delivered another major surprise. Web found the gas

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is overwhelmingly carbon dioxide, about ninety five percent CO two,

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with only about five percent water.

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Speaker 1: Vapor ninety five percent CO two. How does that compare

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to comets from our own solar system, it's radically different.

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Speaker 3: Comets from our neighborhood, whether they come from the distant

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ort cloud or the closer Kuiper Belt, are typically water rich,

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often eighty percent water ice or more. This object three

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ioutless has sixteen times more CO two relative to water

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than any comet ever studied before. It's an extreme chemical outlier.

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Speaker 1: Sixteen times. That's not a small difference, YEA. What does

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being so CO two dominant tell us about where it

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might have formed, assuming it's natural For a.

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Speaker 3: Moment, it tells us it must have formed in an

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incredibly cold environment, far colder than where our own.

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Speaker 2: Solar systems comets formed.

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Speaker 3: Carbon dioxide ice only condenses and remains stable at much

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lower temperatures than water ice. So if it's natural, it

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likely originated somewhere like the ancient thick disk of our

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Milky Way galaxy.

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Speaker 1: The thick disk that's an older part of the galaxy, much.

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Speaker 3: Older and generally colder than the thin disk where our

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Sun resides. We could be talking about an object that

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formed seven to eleven billion years ago, long before our

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sun and planets even existed.

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Speaker 1: So if it is natural It's an incredibly ancient relic,

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a time capsule from the early Milky.

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Speaker 3: Way, potentially yes, which would be incredibly exciting in its

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own right. It would be the oldest, most chemically primitive

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object we've ever encountered, offering clues about the galaxy's early conditions.

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Speaker 1: You have this picture of an ancient super cold CO

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two rich natural object, and then you overlay the signature

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of modern industrial grade nickel separation. The two pictures just

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don't seem to fit together, do they.

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Speaker 3: They really don't. It's chemically incoherent. And then things got

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even weirder visually, around early September, there was the sudden

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color change.

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Speaker 1: A color change. How did we notice that?

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Speaker 3: This came largely from the amateur astronomy community. Actually, these

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are dedicated observers with excellent equipment who monitor objects like

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this constantly. Around September seventh, several reputable amateurs reported that

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the coma the fuzzy gas cloud around the nucleus, which

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had previously looked sort of reddish.

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Speaker 1: Reddish usually means complex organic molecules, right, dusts and stuff.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, typical sort of dirty snowball. Organic compounds often give

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a reddish tinge. But suddenly, around that date it started

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glowing with a distinct bright green, maybe even slightly bluish hue.

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Speaker 1: Green doesn't green in comets usually come from something specific.

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Speaker 3: It usually comes from diatomic carb in C two molecules

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breaking down in ultraviolet sunlight. That's the classic green glow

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associated with many comets heads.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so it turned green, what's the problem.

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Speaker 3: The problem is that earlier spectral analysis the professional studies

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had already determined that three ia tellus was one of

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the most depleted in carbon chain molecules like C two.

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Ever observed it seemingly didn't have the basic ingredients needed

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to produce that characteristic green glow.

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Speaker 1: So it started glowing green. But it shouldn't have had

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the stuff to make green precisely.

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Speaker 2: It's another major contradiction.

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Speaker 3: Something new must have started happening around early September to

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generate that unexpected.

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Speaker 1: Color, And did this happen around the same time as

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the nickel increase?

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Speaker 3: The timing is suggestive. Yes, this sudden color change seems

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to coincide with that period when the nickel emission was

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ramping up significantly, and crucially, it also correlates with a

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rapidly increasing detection of hydrogen cyanide HCN by the VLT.

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Speaker 1: Hydrogen cyanide another chemical showing up.

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Speaker 3: Yes, a simple molecule mid of hydrogen carbon and nitrogen.

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So you have three things happening around the same time.

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Nickel emission spiking, hydrogen cyanide production spiking, and the coma

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abruptly changing color to green despite lacking the usual C two.

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Speaker 1: It sounds like the increasing heat from the sun isn't

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just vaporizing the surface layers, but maybe penetrating deeper and

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triggering reactions in some different, unexpected material underneath.

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Speaker 3: That's a very plausible interpretation. It suggests the object isn't homogeneous.

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There might be distinct layers with very different and very

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anomalous chemical compositions being revealed as it heats up.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so the statistics are wrong, the chemistry is impossible.

380
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Surely when we just look at it with our best telescopes,

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things make sense. Apparently not. The visual evidence seems just

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as contradictory, starting with this thing called the forward glow

383
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or the anti tail.

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Speaker 3: Right. This was seen clearly in a Hubble Space telescope

385
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image taken back on July twenty first, instead of a

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tail streaming away from the sun, Hubble saw a distinct

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teardrop shaped cocoon of dust that was elongated ahead of

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the nucleus, pointing towards.

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Speaker 1: The sun, pointing towards the sun. Hang on, that sounds

390
00:19:07,359 --> 00:19:10,039
completely backwards. Can you walk us through why that shouldn't happen?

391
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Speaker 2: Sure?

392
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Speaker 3: Comet tails are formed by two main forces, both originating

393
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from the Sun. First, there's the solar wind, a stream

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of charged particles which ionizes gas from the comet and

395
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pushes it directly away from the Sun, forming.

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Speaker 1: The plasma tail okay, pushes away.

397
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Speaker 3: Second, there's radiation pressure sunlight itself. Photons hitting the tiny

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dust particles released by the comet physically push them away

399
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from the Sun, forming the dust tail pushes away again.

400
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Speaker 1: So, no matter how you slice it, the tail material

401
00:19:38,839 --> 00:19:43,039
gas or dust should always be pointing generally away from

402
00:19:43,039 --> 00:19:43,920
the salt ways.

403
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Speaker 3: There's simply no known physical mechanism in standard comet science

404
00:19:48,160 --> 00:19:50,559
that would cause a significant amount of dust to pile

405
00:19:50,640 --> 00:19:53,640
up ahead of the nucleus resisting the relentless push of

406
00:19:53,680 --> 00:19:57,319
sunlight and solar wind. It violates basic physics.

407
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Speaker 1: So what did the professional astronomers say? When they saw

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this Pubble image.

409
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Speaker 3: The official descriptions often use words like puzzling or intriguing.

410
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Some suggested it might be an observational artifact, maybe smearing

411
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in the image due to tracking or some complex projection effect.

412
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Speaker 1: But artifacts usually look random, right smears or glitches. This

413
00:20:15,039 --> 00:20:17,640
was described as a structured tear drop shape.

414
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Speaker 3: That's the issue. It didn't look like a random glitch.

415
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It looked like a specific structure pointing the wrong way.

416
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And if it wasn't an artifact, there was no immediate,

417
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easy physical explanation for it.

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Speaker 1: And this ties into another controversy, doesn't it the claims

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00:20:29,960 --> 00:20:32,720
from amateurs about seeing structure within the glow?

420
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Speaker 2: It does.

421
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Speaker 3: Around the same time the professionals were puzzling over Hubble's

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forward glow, some highly respected amateur astronomers using really sophisticated

423
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tracking setups were capturing images that they claimed showed more

424
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than just a fuzzy blob. They reported seeing hints of

425
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structure beneath the dust hard edges, maybe even geometric shapes

426
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within the bright core of the coma.

427
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Speaker 1: So not just a diffuse cloud, but something solid and

428
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define underneath.

429
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Speaker 3: That was the claim that beneath the gas and dust.

430
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The nucleus itself looked less like an irregular potato shape,

431
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which is typical for asteroids and comments, and more like

432
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something structured.

433
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Speaker 1: And how did the professional community react to those claims?

434
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Speaker 3: The reaction was pretty swift and largely dismissive. The immediate

435
00:21:18,200 --> 00:21:22,359
explanations offered were again image processing errors, motion blur from

436
00:21:22,400 --> 00:21:27,440
the object moving, atmospheric distortion, tracking inaccuracies, basically attributing it

437
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to the challenges of photographing a faint moving object.

438
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Speaker 1: But weren't these amateurs using pretty advanced.

439
00:21:32,960 --> 00:21:36,759
Speaker 3: Gear some of them, yes, equipment that in some cases

440
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rivals the capabilities of professional survey telescopes that initially found

441
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objects like three iAtlas.

442
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Speaker 2: There's a certain irony there.

443
00:21:44,319 --> 00:21:46,839
Speaker 1: Yeah, it seems like the professionals see their own impossible

444
00:21:46,839 --> 00:21:50,359
thing the forward glow and call it puzzling. But when

445
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amateurs report something equally strange structure, it's immediately dismissed as

446
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user error.

447
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Speaker 3: It does create a kind of double standard, or at

448
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least a missed opportunity for verification. Ideally, when multiple credible

449
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observers report something anomalous, even if it's challenging, the next

450
00:22:07,200 --> 00:22:09,640
step should be to point a more powerful instrument like

451
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WEB or VLT, specifically to try and confirm or refute it.

452
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That follow up on the structure claim seems to have

453
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been largely stipped.

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Speaker 1: Over, which must be frustrating if you believe you saw something.

455
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Speaker 3: Real, definitely and the visual contradictions don't stop there. We

456
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also have a puzzle when we look at the object

457
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in a different kind of light, infrared. This is the

458
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infrared contradiction.

459
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Speaker 1: Infrared.

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Speaker 2: That's the heat right exactly.

461
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Speaker 3: Infrared telescopes cut through the visible dust and gas to

462
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see the thermal emission, the heat radiating from the object's

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surface and the surrounding material warmed by the sun. NASA's

464
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SPHERICX infrared space telescope looked at three IET lists back

465
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in early August, and what did it see?

466
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Speaker 1: Given all the gas and dust Hubble saw, you'd expect

467
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a big, warm, fuzzy blob in infrared.

468
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Speaker 2: You absolutely would.

469
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Speaker 3: If it's shedding one hundred and twenty nine kilograms of

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CO two per second plus dust, that material should be

471
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absorbing some light light, warming up and glowing brightly in infrared,

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creating an extended heat signature around the nucleus. But Spheric

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saw the opposite. It observed three IAT lists as just

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a point source.

475
00:23:11,319 --> 00:23:14,160
Speaker 1: A point source like a single tiny dot.

476
00:23:14,279 --> 00:23:17,759
Speaker 3: Exactly indistinguishable from a distant star in their infrared images.

477
00:23:18,119 --> 00:23:20,839
No extended fuzzy coma, no glowing tail, just a single

478
00:23:20,880 --> 00:23:21,480
point of light.

479
00:23:21,559 --> 00:23:23,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, how can that be? How can it be spewing

480
00:23:23,480 --> 00:23:26,119
out tons of material that's visible to Hubble but be

481
00:23:26,240 --> 00:23:29,240
completely compact and point like in the infrared heat view.

482
00:23:29,519 --> 00:23:33,160
Speaker 3: It's a major contradiction. It suggests the object has very

483
00:23:33,240 --> 00:23:37,319
unusual thermal properties. There are a couple of main possibilities.

484
00:23:37,359 --> 00:23:41,400
One the surface might be incredibly reflective, like polished metal

485
00:23:41,839 --> 00:23:44,880
or a very clean mirror like ice. It could be

486
00:23:44,920 --> 00:23:47,519
bouncing almost all the sunlight away before it gets a

487
00:23:47,559 --> 00:23:48,440
chance to absorb the.

488
00:23:48,400 --> 00:23:51,400
Speaker 1: Heat, so it stays cold and doesn't glow, an infrared.

489
00:23:51,160 --> 00:23:52,359
Speaker 2: Right possibility too.

490
00:23:53,240 --> 00:23:57,079
Speaker 3: It might have an extremely effective insulating layer. Imagine some

491
00:23:57,200 --> 00:23:59,880
kind of shell or crust that prevents the sun's heat

492
00:24:00,039 --> 00:24:03,319
from penetrating down to the massive nucleus or warming up

493
00:24:03,359 --> 00:24:07,519
the ejected materials significantly. The outgassing might just be happening

494
00:24:07,519 --> 00:24:10,559
from very superficial pockets, leaving the bulk of the object

495
00:24:10,640 --> 00:24:13,960
and maybe even the plume close to it surprisingly cold, and.

496
00:24:13,960 --> 00:24:17,279
Speaker 1: Neither of those super reflective or perfectly insulated sounds like

497
00:24:17,319 --> 00:24:21,079
a typical, dirty, porous comet nucleus.

498
00:24:20,400 --> 00:24:20,880
Speaker 2: Not at all.

499
00:24:21,039 --> 00:24:24,039
Speaker 3: Natural comets tend to be dark, absorb heat readily, and

500
00:24:24,160 --> 00:24:27,799
show significant extended thermal signatures from their comas and tails.

501
00:24:28,279 --> 00:24:31,799
So the infrared point source observation adds yet another layer

502
00:24:31,799 --> 00:24:36,160
of weirdness, forward glow claims of internal structure and now

503
00:24:36,240 --> 00:24:40,480
extreme thermal compactness. The visual data is just as confusing

504
00:24:40,480 --> 00:24:43,279
as the chemistry and physics which brings us to it.

505
00:24:43,319 --> 00:24:47,920
Today October third, twenty twenty five. This is a really

506
00:24:47,920 --> 00:24:51,160
critical date because it marks the object's closest approach to Mars.

507
00:24:51,440 --> 00:24:53,759
It'll pass within about twenty nine million.

508
00:24:53,519 --> 00:24:57,359
Speaker 1: Kilometers twenty nine million kilometers still quite far, but cosmically speaking,

509
00:24:57,400 --> 00:25:00,359
pretty close for an interstellar visitor. Why why is this

510
00:25:00,440 --> 00:25:01,680
flyby so important?

511
00:25:01,799 --> 00:25:04,400
Speaker 3: Because we have an asset right there, the Mars Reconnaissance

512
00:25:04,519 --> 00:25:07,839
Orbiter MRO, and it carries an incredibly powerful camera called

513
00:25:07,920 --> 00:25:11,440
high Rise. The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment MRO is

514
00:25:11,440 --> 00:25:13,400
going to train and take pictures of three ilis during

515
00:25:13,400 --> 00:25:14,000
this flyby.

516
00:25:14,240 --> 00:25:17,119
Speaker 1: What kind of detail can Highrise get from that distance.

517
00:25:16,960 --> 00:25:20,519
Speaker 3: The expected resolution is around thirty kilometers per pixel. Now

518
00:25:20,519 --> 00:25:22,799
that might not sound amazing, but it should be good

519
00:25:22,920 --> 00:25:26,079
enough to clearly distinguish the solid nucleus, the actual five

520
00:25:26,119 --> 00:25:29,839
kilometer plus core, from the surrounding fuzzy gas and dust coma.

521
00:25:30,279 --> 00:25:33,000
It's potentially our best chance yet to get a definitive

522
00:25:33,000 --> 00:25:34,839
measurement of the nucleus size.

523
00:25:35,079 --> 00:25:37,839
Speaker 1: And if he Rise confirms that nucleus really is five

524
00:25:37,920 --> 00:25:40,799
kilometers across or even bigger, what are the.

525
00:25:40,720 --> 00:25:44,599
Speaker 3: Implications then that statistical paradox we talked about earlier becomes

526
00:25:44,680 --> 00:25:48,599
almost insurmountable. The one one hundred thousand odds of finding

527
00:25:48,640 --> 00:25:52,519
something this big this soon, Well, if the size is confirmed,

528
00:25:52,720 --> 00:25:56,119
those odds basically drop to near zero based on current models.

529
00:25:56,319 --> 00:25:58,039
Speaker 1: It would force a fundamental rethink.

530
00:25:58,200 --> 00:26:01,480
Speaker 3: It would essentially force astronomers to say, Okay, either our

531
00:26:01,599 --> 00:26:05,920
understanding of interstellar object population is completely wrong, or this

532
00:26:06,119 --> 00:26:09,799
object's presence here is not random. The natural explanation would

533
00:26:09,839 --> 00:26:12,720
be stretched to the absolute breaking point, possibly beyond.

534
00:26:12,799 --> 00:26:15,519
Speaker 1: And this Mars flyby also plays into that more speculative,

535
00:26:15,519 --> 00:26:18,480
maybe even unsettling idea, the precursor probe theory.

536
00:26:18,799 --> 00:26:21,960
Speaker 3: Yes, this is something Avi Lowi has highlighted based on

537
00:26:21,960 --> 00:26:26,440
the object's trajectory. Again remember that remarkable fine tuning we discussed.

538
00:26:26,920 --> 00:26:29,880
He calculated that the object's path brings it not just

539
00:26:30,000 --> 00:26:34,160
near Mars, but its minimum orbit intersection distance. The absolute

540
00:26:34,240 --> 00:26:37,400
closest its path could possibly get to Mars's orbit is

541
00:26:37,519 --> 00:26:39,880
just two point seven million kilometers.

542
00:26:40,000 --> 00:26:43,000
Speaker 1: That's incredibly close, almost hitting Mars's orbital path.

543
00:26:43,160 --> 00:26:47,200
Speaker 3: Suspiciously close, some would argue, and Lowe's theory, based on

544
00:26:47,279 --> 00:26:50,799
engineering logic, is this. If three I eat lass were

545
00:26:50,799 --> 00:26:54,960
some kind of large interstellar mothership sent for reconnaissance.

546
00:26:54,279 --> 00:26:56,039
Speaker 1: You wouldn't just send the big ship. You'd send out

547
00:26:56,079 --> 00:26:57,440
smaller scouts exactly.

548
00:26:57,599 --> 00:27:01,079
Speaker 3: You'd likely deploy smaller, dedicated probe to get closer looks

549
00:27:01,079 --> 00:27:04,759
at interesting targets like planets. And critically, these probes could

550
00:27:04,799 --> 00:27:08,079
be small enough to be completely undetectable by our telescopes

551
00:27:08,119 --> 00:27:08,519
from Earth.

552
00:27:08,599 --> 00:27:11,000
Speaker 1: What's the detection limit? How small would they need to be?

553
00:27:11,200 --> 00:27:14,640
Speaker 3: At Mars's distance, We'd struggle to reliably spot anything much

554
00:27:14,680 --> 00:27:17,960
smaller than about one hundred meters across. So a technologically

555
00:27:18,039 --> 00:27:21,920
advanced civilization could easily design scout probes, say ten or

556
00:27:21,960 --> 00:27:25,799
fifty meters in size that would be effectively invisible to us, and.

557
00:27:25,799 --> 00:27:29,960
Speaker 1: These hypothetical probes deployed from the main object could potentially

558
00:27:30,079 --> 00:27:32,759
use that close Mars approach to intercept the planet.

559
00:27:32,960 --> 00:27:33,720
Speaker 2: That's the theory.

560
00:27:33,960 --> 00:27:38,559
Speaker 3: The main object passes by, maybe deploys these smaller, stealthy probes,

561
00:27:38,799 --> 00:27:41,720
which then make their own way towards Mars, arriving around

562
00:27:41,720 --> 00:27:42,160
this time.

563
00:27:42,440 --> 00:27:45,039
Speaker 1: So MRO isn't just looking at the main object today.

564
00:27:45,359 --> 00:27:50,359
Speaker 3: That implies a potential, perhaps unstated, secondary objective for high rise.

565
00:27:50,480 --> 00:27:53,640
It won't just be imaging the bright nucleus of three ilis.

566
00:27:54,000 --> 00:27:56,880
It will likely also be scanning the volume of space

567
00:27:56,960 --> 00:27:59,319
around it, especially in the direction ahead of the main

568
00:27:59,359 --> 00:28:03,240
object towards Mars, looking for anything else, smaller points of

569
00:28:03,319 --> 00:28:06,799
light moving in formation, or any object whose trajectory seems

570
00:28:06,839 --> 00:28:11,240
independent of the main body's gravitational pull, potentially vectoring towards Mars.

571
00:28:11,480 --> 00:28:14,839
Finding something like that, well, that would be unambiguous evidence

572
00:28:14,880 --> 00:28:16,480
of deployment of technology.

573
00:28:16,680 --> 00:28:20,079
Speaker 1: And given that finely tuned trajectory, how much effort would

574
00:28:20,079 --> 00:28:23,440
it take for say, the main object to adjust its

575
00:28:23,440 --> 00:28:26,400
course slightly to get even closer or deploy something precisely.

576
00:28:26,640 --> 00:28:27,799
Speaker 2: That's another key point.

577
00:28:28,039 --> 00:28:31,440
Speaker 3: Low calculated that only a tiny velocity change, maybe ten

578
00:28:31,480 --> 00:28:34,400
to fifteen kilometers per second, would be needed to nudge

579
00:28:34,440 --> 00:28:36,960
the object or a deployed probe from that two point

580
00:28:37,000 --> 00:28:41,720
seven million kilometers near miss onto an actual Mars intercept course.

581
00:28:42,200 --> 00:28:45,519
For a commet, a fifteen kilometers change is physically impossible

582
00:28:45,519 --> 00:28:50,559
through natural outgassing. For a hypothetical large craft with an engine,

583
00:28:50,720 --> 00:28:53,279
that's a trivial maneuver, a tiny puff of thrust.

584
00:28:52,960 --> 00:28:54,799
Speaker 1: A tiny puff that we might be about to miss

585
00:28:54,920 --> 00:28:58,359
entirely because of the timing. This leads to the intentional

586
00:28:58,400 --> 00:29:01,160
timing aspect. Yeah, the object disappearing behind the Sun.

587
00:29:01,400 --> 00:29:04,240
Speaker 3: Yes, and this is perhaps the element that raises the

588
00:29:04,240 --> 00:29:07,559
most suspicion for those leaning towards a non natural explanation.

589
00:29:08,319 --> 00:29:11,440
Right after this critical Mars fly by window three I,

590
00:29:11,599 --> 00:29:14,559
allis moves into conjunction with the Sun from our perspective

591
00:29:14,559 --> 00:29:15,160
here on Earth.

592
00:29:15,279 --> 00:29:17,319
Speaker 1: It disappears into the Sun's glare.

593
00:29:17,079 --> 00:29:18,039
Speaker 2: For about two months.

594
00:29:18,119 --> 00:29:21,680
Speaker 3: Yes, from roughly late September through early December. It will

595
00:29:21,680 --> 00:29:23,880
be impossible to observe from Earth because it's.

596
00:29:23,759 --> 00:29:24,440
Speaker 2: Behind the Sun.

597
00:29:24,920 --> 00:29:28,039
Speaker 3: And crucially, the timing couldn't be more well convenient.

598
00:29:28,079 --> 00:29:29,160
Speaker 2: If you wanted to hide something.

599
00:29:29,519 --> 00:29:32,200
Speaker 3: It reaches Perihelion, its closest point to the Sun, on

600
00:29:32,240 --> 00:29:33,839
October thirtyth.

601
00:29:33,440 --> 00:29:36,279
Speaker 1: Right in the middle of the blackout period, and perihelian

602
00:29:36,440 --> 00:29:40,880
is when comets are most active, most revealing exactly.

603
00:29:41,359 --> 00:29:44,920
Speaker 3: That's when they experience the most intense solar heating, the

604
00:29:44,920 --> 00:29:49,039
most outgassing, the most stress. It's the single most important

605
00:29:49,039 --> 00:29:52,359
time to observe a comet, to understand its true nature,

606
00:29:52,480 --> 00:29:55,880
see how it behaves under maximum pressure, maybe even see

607
00:29:55,880 --> 00:29:58,440
if it breaks apart and we are going to miss

608
00:29:58,480 --> 00:29:59,440
that entire window.

609
00:29:59,559 --> 00:30:03,559
Speaker 1: If this we're technological, that period of solar conjunction would

610
00:30:03,559 --> 00:30:05,680
be the perfect time to do things you don't want

611
00:30:05,720 --> 00:30:06,599
observed from Earth.

612
00:30:06,799 --> 00:30:10,519
Speaker 3: Its ideal cover, perform a significant course correction. That ten

613
00:30:10,519 --> 00:30:13,400
to fifteen kilometers burn we talked about would be completely hidden,

614
00:30:13,559 --> 00:30:17,440
deploy those precursor probes hidden, maybe even intentionally shed the

615
00:30:17,480 --> 00:30:20,279
outer cometary disguise layers. Now that it's done its job,

616
00:30:20,720 --> 00:30:22,960
all could happen while it's lost in the solar clear.

617
00:30:23,240 --> 00:30:26,079
Speaker 1: The timing just feels too perfect. It's either an incredible

618
00:30:26,079 --> 00:30:30,160
coincidence of celestial mechanics, a cruel joke on astronomers, or.

619
00:30:30,079 --> 00:30:33,079
Speaker 3: It's a sign of intelligence that understands orbital dynamics and

620
00:30:33,160 --> 00:30:36,119
planet's approach to utilize the Sun as a temporary cloaking

621
00:30:36,119 --> 00:30:38,039
device during its most critical phase.

622
00:30:38,359 --> 00:30:41,200
Speaker 1: So we're basically in the dark until early December.

623
00:30:41,400 --> 00:30:44,759
Speaker 3: December third is the approximate date it's expected to re

624
00:30:44,839 --> 00:30:48,400
emerge from behind the Sun becoming visible again. That will

625
00:30:48,400 --> 00:30:53,160
be an incredibly tense time for astronomers worldwide. Everyone will

626
00:30:53,160 --> 00:30:54,920
be scrambling to get observations.

627
00:30:54,960 --> 00:30:56,480
Speaker 1: What will they be looking for immediately?

628
00:30:56,799 --> 00:30:59,880
Speaker 3: The absolute top priority will be to precisely measure it

629
00:31:00,000 --> 00:31:03,839
its trajectory after perihelium and compare it to the path

630
00:31:04,000 --> 00:31:08,160
predicted based on its motion before perihelium, accounting for the

631
00:31:08,200 --> 00:31:12,200
maximum plausible non gravitational forces from outgassing, and.

632
00:31:12,160 --> 00:31:14,599
Speaker 1: If the path has changed more than physics allows for

633
00:31:14,640 --> 00:31:15,480
a comet.

634
00:31:15,400 --> 00:31:17,839
Speaker 3: If its orbit has shifted in a way that cannot

635
00:31:17,839 --> 00:31:22,079
be explained by gravity and the observed or inferred maximum outgassing,

636
00:31:22,720 --> 00:31:24,880
then you're looking at the signature of propulsion.

637
00:31:25,000 --> 00:31:28,319
Speaker 1: Propulsion means deliberation intent exactly.

638
00:31:28,640 --> 00:31:30,440
Speaker 2: That would be the smoking gun, arguably.

639
00:31:30,559 --> 00:31:33,400
Speaker 1: Okay, so let's just quickly recap this extraordinary situation. We've

640
00:31:33,440 --> 00:31:37,240
dived into. We have three. Ialis an interstellar visitor that

641
00:31:37,359 --> 00:31:41,400
is first statistically almost Imposmomi one hundred thousand times bigger

642
00:31:41,440 --> 00:31:45,319
than expected based on its discovery number. Second, it's arrived

643
00:31:45,359 --> 00:31:49,440
on a highly improbable one in five hundred trajectory, almost

644
00:31:49,480 --> 00:31:53,279
perfectly aligned with our planets and optimized for flybys. Check. Third,

645
00:31:53,599 --> 00:31:57,160
its chemistry is defiant, showing industrial grade nickel without its

646
00:31:57,160 --> 00:32:00,880
cosmic twin iron and being made of ancient and super

647
00:32:00,960 --> 00:32:04,559
cold dry ice, a combination that just doesn't mesh naturally.

648
00:32:04,680 --> 00:32:05,440
Speaker 2: Major check there.

649
00:32:05,519 --> 00:32:09,759
Speaker 1: Yeah, Fourth, its visual appearance is contradictory, displaying a physics

650
00:32:09,799 --> 00:32:14,279
defying forward glow, possibly having internal structure, and showing up

651
00:32:14,279 --> 00:32:18,319
as a compact point source in infrared heat, suggesting weird

652
00:32:18,400 --> 00:32:21,960
thermal properties like high reflectivity or insulation.

653
00:32:21,599 --> 00:32:23,079
Speaker 2: All documented inconsistencies.

654
00:32:23,160 --> 00:32:25,680
Speaker 1: Yes, And finally, it makes this critical flyby of Mars

655
00:32:25,680 --> 00:32:29,640
today just before executing a perfectly timed disappearing act behind

656
00:32:29,640 --> 00:32:32,680
the Sun during its most active perihelium phase.

657
00:32:32,880 --> 00:32:34,920
Speaker 2: The timing is remarkable.

658
00:32:35,000 --> 00:32:36,880
Speaker 1: It paints a picture. Where As you said, the natural

659
00:32:36,920 --> 00:32:40,759
explanation requires piling coincidence upon coincidence of bond contrived scenario.

660
00:32:41,000 --> 00:32:41,680
Speaker 2: It really does.

661
00:32:41,799 --> 00:32:45,480
Speaker 3: Each anomaly taking in isolation might have a niche, albeit unlikely,

662
00:32:45,599 --> 00:32:49,039
natural explanation. But when you stack them all together, the size,

663
00:32:49,160 --> 00:32:52,119
the path, the nickel, the CO two, the green glow,

664
00:32:52,279 --> 00:32:56,240
the forward tail, the infrared signature, the timing. Maintaining the

665
00:32:56,279 --> 00:33:00,759
purely natural hypothesis requires an increasingly complex It's an improbable

666
00:33:00,839 --> 00:33:05,160
series of unrelated, exotic events all occurring in the same

667
00:33:05,240 --> 00:33:06,680
object at the same time.

668
00:33:07,200 --> 00:33:10,640
Speaker 1: So let's clearly state the two stark possibilities facing us

669
00:33:10,720 --> 00:33:12,200
as we await the upcoming data.

670
00:33:12,319 --> 00:33:16,519
Speaker 3: Okay, possibility A. This is genuinely a natural object, but

671
00:33:16,559 --> 00:33:19,440
one unlike anything we've ever conceived of. It's an incredibly

672
00:33:19,480 --> 00:33:22,559
ancient comment, maybe seven maybe eleven billion years old, born

673
00:33:22,599 --> 00:33:26,000
in the galaxy's cold, thick disk. It's bizarre chemistry. The

674
00:33:26,079 --> 00:33:28,799
nickel the CO two forces us to completely rewrite our

675
00:33:28,839 --> 00:33:31,599
models of element formation and condensation in the early universe.

676
00:33:31,960 --> 00:33:35,200
Its massive size and improbable trajectory are just sheer dumb

677
00:33:35,240 --> 00:33:38,680
luck winning the cosmic glottery multiple times. Every single weird

678
00:33:38,680 --> 00:33:41,839
thing has a separate, highly unusual, but ultimately natural cause.

679
00:33:42,319 --> 00:33:46,000
We are fundamentally wrong about comet formation and interstellar object distribution,

680
00:33:46,119 --> 00:33:47,119
but it's still nature.

681
00:33:47,279 --> 00:33:51,519
Speaker 1: Okay, that's possibility a exotic ancient rule breaking nature and

682
00:33:51,599 --> 00:33:52,359
possibility B.

683
00:33:52,559 --> 00:33:55,039
Speaker 2: Possibility B we are being observed.

684
00:33:55,279 --> 00:33:59,640
Speaker 3: This object is technological. It's immense mass and density explain

685
00:33:59,640 --> 00:34:03,759
its ress resistance to outgassing forces. Its nickel signature is

686
00:34:03,839 --> 00:34:08,639
industrial residue. Its high reflectivity or insulation explains the infrared

687
00:34:08,679 --> 00:34:12,440
point source and perhaps the forward glow. Its trajectory was

688
00:34:12,519 --> 00:34:16,880
deliberately chosen for reconnaissance. Its cometary appearance is a disguise,

689
00:34:17,440 --> 00:34:20,119
perhaps a layer of volatile material designed to mimic a

690
00:34:20,239 --> 00:34:23,320
natural object which is now burning off and revealing stranger

691
00:34:23,400 --> 00:34:27,480
signatures underneath. Its disappearance behind the sun is intentional. In

692
00:34:27,559 --> 00:34:31,199
this scenario, the disguise is working almost perfectly, sowing confusion

693
00:34:31,239 --> 00:34:35,360
while the object behaves exactly as a massive solid potentially controlled.

694
00:34:35,000 --> 00:34:37,960
Speaker 1: Craft WET two confoundly different realities, and the key data

695
00:34:38,000 --> 00:34:41,039
points are coming soon Today's Mars observations.

696
00:34:40,400 --> 00:34:43,760
Speaker 3: From MRO, which might give us nuclear sized conformation or

697
00:34:43,880 --> 00:34:46,119
pharma dramatically detect precursor probes.

698
00:34:46,159 --> 00:34:48,639
Speaker 1: And then December third, when it re emerges, that's when

699
00:34:48,639 --> 00:34:50,960
we check for propulsion signatures in its orbit.

700
00:34:51,119 --> 00:34:53,679
Speaker 3: Correct and further down the line. The Jupiter flyby in

701
00:34:53,719 --> 00:34:56,639
March twenty twenty six could offer more clues, perhaps from

702
00:34:56,639 --> 00:34:59,000
the Juno sacecraft or other observations.

703
00:34:59,239 --> 00:35:02,880
Speaker 1: You know, this whole situation throws a spotlight on something interesting.

704
00:35:03,320 --> 00:35:07,320
Our protocols for finding alien intelligence SETI. They're almost all

705
00:35:07,360 --> 00:35:11,079
focused on detecting radio signals, right beacons.

706
00:35:10,599 --> 00:35:14,920
Speaker 3: Messages overwhelmingly so yes, that's been the strategy for decades

707
00:35:15,400 --> 00:35:17,039
listen for intentional communication.

708
00:35:17,360 --> 00:35:20,440
Speaker 1: But what happens if the first confirmed evidence isn't a

709
00:35:20,480 --> 00:35:24,559
signal but a physical object, a probe, A craft like

710
00:35:24,639 --> 00:35:26,800
three I at lows could be Do we even have

711
00:35:26,840 --> 00:35:27,800
a plan for that?

712
00:35:27,800 --> 00:35:31,440
Speaker 3: That's the critical gap. There is currently no established, internationally

713
00:35:31,480 --> 00:35:34,519
agreed upon protocol within the scientific community for how to

714
00:35:34,559 --> 00:35:38,719
handle the confirmed detection of an interstellar physical artifact. The

715
00:35:38,840 --> 00:35:42,400
verification process for extraordinary claims in science is necessarily slow

716
00:35:42,400 --> 00:35:45,079
in rigorous, often taking months or years of peer review.

717
00:35:45,320 --> 00:35:48,280
Speaker 1: But this object isn't waiting around for peer review. By

718
00:35:48,320 --> 00:35:50,360
next spring, it'll be well on its way out of

719
00:35:50,400 --> 00:35:52,960
the intersolar system, moving incredibly fast.

720
00:35:53,239 --> 00:35:56,480
Speaker 3: Precisely, the timescale of the phenomenon is much faster than

721
00:35:56,519 --> 00:35:59,000
the timescale of traditional scientific verification.

722
00:35:59,119 --> 00:36:01,119
Speaker 2: For something this paradigm shifting.

723
00:36:01,360 --> 00:36:03,960
Speaker 1: So here's the final thought, the thing for you, our listener,

724
00:36:04,000 --> 00:36:07,679
to really mull over. What does this all mean If

725
00:36:07,719 --> 00:36:10,440
the data from Mars today or the orbital data in

726
00:36:10,519 --> 00:36:14,800
December points strongly towards technology structure, probes propulsion, what actually

727
00:36:14,840 --> 00:36:17,880
happens next? Who gets that data first, how's it verified?

728
00:36:17,880 --> 00:36:20,599
And how long does that verification take before the world

729
00:36:20,639 --> 00:36:23,880
is told that perhaps, just perhaps we're not alone and

730
00:36:23,920 --> 00:36:26,199
the visitor's already heading away at one hundred and thirty

731
00:36:26,199 --> 00:36:29,679
seven thousand miles per hour. That gap between detection and confirmation,

732
00:36:29,800 --> 00:36:32,480
that uncertainty, that might be the biggest unknown of all

733
00:36:32,559 --> 00:36:32,960
right now