Speaker 1: Welcome to Thrilling Threads. We're the show that gives you
the absolute fastest shortcut to being truly well informed by
diving deep into the most compelling and sometimes the most
complex source material out there.
Speaker 2: And today we are strapping in for what might just
be the ultimate astronomical detective story, I think.
Speaker 1: So imagine this if you can. There's an object. It's
about the size of Manhattan, and it is just hurtling
through our solar system right now.
Speaker 2: When you say hurdling, you really mean it. It's completely
unbound by our son's gravity, moving in a staggering velocity
of around one hundred and fifty thousand miles per hour.
Speaker 1: But the speed, as incredible as it is, isn't even
the most intriguing part. The source material you shared it
details this really peculiar behavior. This massive interstellar visitor is pulsing, pulsing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's blinking kind of like a cosmic heart, and
it's operating on this incredibly precise scheduled rhythm.
Speaker 1: So our mission for this deep dive is to use
that research. We're focusing, particularly on the highly publicized claims
by heart astrophysicist Auvi Lobe to answer one single question.
Is this object officially designated three I at lists just
an unusually active, billions of years old icy.
Speaker 2: Comment, or could that sixteen hour pulse be signaling something else,
something far more profound, like technology, perhaps a piece of
engineering crafted by an alien civilization.
Speaker 1: It's such a wild question to even ask.
Speaker 2: It is, but this is a perfect example of science
right at the edge. On one hand, you have this
incredibly robust, measurable data showing chemical anomalies, extreme kinematics, things
that just don't add up. And on the other equally
robust data pointing to in a perfectly natural, if a
bit strange, commetary explanation. So we're going to navigate the evidence,
the speculation, and of course a deep skepticism that really
defines this whole controversy.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's do it. Let's unpack this right from the
very beginning. We should probably establish what three I less
actually is. And you know how it was even discovered
in the first place.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the initial discovery provides some really critical context. The
object was first spotted way back in July of twenty
twenty five. Right, it was found by NASA's Asteroid Terrestrial
Impact Last Alert system. Everyone just calls it by its
acronym atl.
Speaker 1: At LS, and that's a network of telescopes right designed
to spot things coming close to Earth exactly.
Speaker 2: The network is primarily stationed in Chile and its whole
job is to spot fast moving near Earth objects. So
it was doing its job perfectly.
Speaker 1: And the name itself three ia to LUs. That immediately
tells you how unique this thing is. It really does
that three I part. Yeah, that denotes that this is
only the third observable interstellar object we have ever confirmed
passing through our neighborhood.
Speaker 2: Only the third I for interstellar The first was the
infamous Umua, which had its own controversies, followed by the
comet Borisov.
Speaker 1: So seeing something like this is an incredibly rare occurrent.
Speaker 2: It's exceptionally rare. And you know, when it was initially announced,
the scientific consensus was pretty straightforward. Everyone thought, Okay, this
is likely a typical, albeit an icy comet coming from
where it looked like it was originating from the direction
of the constellation Sagittarius. Initial projections calculated its trajectory and
it was going to pass safely about one hundred and
fifty million miles from Earth, so no threat so.
Speaker 1: At first it was just catalog does this remarkable but
ultimately natural piece of space to trite us exactly?
Speaker 2: A fascinating curiosity for sure, but nothing that suggested, you know,
an engine or a heart beat.
Speaker 1: And that's where everything changed. That brings us to the
key observation that really forms the core of this entire controversy,
the enigma of the interstellar heartbeat.
Speaker 2: Right, this is where the entire discussion just pivoted. It
was the fact that three I out Lows appears to
be engaging in these highly regular periodic bursts, bursts of
what it's shooting off, these puffs of gas and dust
what astronomers call a coma, and that coma scatters sunlight.
Speaker 1: Which makes the object appear to brighten and then dim again,
giving it that blinking or pulsing effect precisely.
Speaker 2: And this wasn't just random sputtering, which you know you
might expect from pockets of ice sublimating unevenly on a
spinning rock.
Speaker 1: No, this had a define rhythm. And this is where
we go straight to the source material to AVI lob analysis.
I think it was from his blog posts. Are the
jets from three Atlas pulsed like a heartbeat.
Speaker 2: That's the one lob and his collaborators. They confirmed that
the object's light blinks repeat with the specific measurable cosmic
cadence rate every sixteen point sixteen hours.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's not a rough estimate. That is a highly regular,
precise number.
Speaker 2: Incredibly precise, which is why Lobeb famously likened it to
the light of an interstellar lighthouse. I mean, when you
observe that level of precision in nature, especially on a
colossal object hurtling through space, it demands an explanation.
Speaker 1: Okay, so the rhythm is established sixteen point sixteen hours.
The object is moving way too fast to be orbiting anything,
so this has to be some kind of internal cycle.
So what are the competing explanations for it?
Speaker 2: Low presented two really distinct hypotheses to explain lane this periodicity,
and they really represent the core battleground here between natural
science on one side and this incredible technological speculation on
the other.
Speaker 1: Let's start with the standard one, the cometary explanation hypothesis.
One the natural ice reservoir. That's a natural heart beat analogy,
right right.
Speaker 2: This model is based on pretty standard thermal mechanics and
rotation yea, we know three If Likes is rotating, I
mean all objects in space do.
Speaker 1: So the idea is what, it's got a big icy
spot on it.
Speaker 2: Essentially, yes, The hypothesis suggests that it has an ice
reservoir or a particularly active region on its surface. So
when that side of the object rotates to face.
Speaker 1: The sun, the sun's radiation hits it and causes.
Speaker 2: The frozen ice maybe it's water ice, maybe it's CO
two ice to rapidly convert directly into gas. That process
is called sublimation.
Speaker 1: And that gas carries dust with it, forming that visible
cloud the coma creating that luminous puff we see.
Speaker 2: So when the reservoirs in the sunlight, the cosmic faucet
is on, so to speak.
Speaker 1: That makes sense.
Speaker 2: But as the object continues its sixteen hour rotation cycle,
that active spot moves to the night side, facing away
from the.
Speaker 1: Sun I think, gets cold again.
Speaker 2: Temperature's plummet, the gas emission stops or at least lows
way down, and the activity goes dark. So the light
modulation the puffing is periodically governed by the rotation rate
in the solar heating cycle. It's like a cosmic temperature
regulated pump.
Speaker 1: Which would be a perfectly natural, if you know, spectacular
explanation for that sixteen point scene hour period.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, it's the most straightforward physics based explanation.
Speaker 1: Okay, that makes perfect sense for a standard comet. But
what about the opposing view hypothesis too, the one that
shifts the whole discussion from thermal physics to wealth to engineering.
Speaker 2: Hypothesis too treats that sixteen point one scene hour period
as a purely internal operational cycle. If three ilas is
a piece of technology, a sophisticated probe, maybe that period
reflects its scheduled activity.
Speaker 1: So an operational schedule, not a physical response to its environment.
Speaker 2: Exactly. This technological cycle could involve the controlled ejection of
material or the firing of jets that are periodically modulated.
Speaker 1: And Lob suggested what these jets could be.
Speaker 2: He specifically suggested they could be thrusters used for navigation.
Think about it. A spacecraft might execute orbital corrections or
other maneuvers only when certain conditions are met, or to conserve.
Speaker 1: Energy, requiring a burst of propulsion every sixteen point sixteen hours.
Speaker 2: Right in that scenario, the timing is defined by internal
programming or maybe energy efficiency, not the rotation relative to
the sun.
Speaker 1: It's deliberate, the natural explanation, simple rotation. That's clearly the
path of least resistance for most scientists. It's Okham's razor.
But Low didn't just leave it there. He provided some
strong arguments as to why that simple model might be
well incomplete or.
Speaker 2: Even insufficient to explain the nature of the light we're
seeing right. His rebuttal focuses on the luminosity data. This
was gathered by the Hubble Space telescope Bunch Light twenty
first twenty twenty five, and Low pointed out that when
you analyze the object's overall brightness, less than ten percent
of the light we see is coming directly from the center,
from the nucleus itself.
Speaker 1: So the core of this Manhattan sized object is actually pretty.
Speaker 2: Dim, extremely dim, which led Love to conclude that, and
this is a quote, the lion's share of the object's
glow emanates from the coma, that expanding cloud of gas
and dust.
Speaker 1: Okay, why is that detail so critical?
Speaker 2: Because if the light source were dominated by the nucleus
simply reflecting sunlight, then the rotational explanation would be ironclad.
It would be an open and shutcase.
Speaker 1: It would just be a blight spot spinning into view exactly.
Speaker 2: But since the brightness is overwhelmingly dominated by the emission
by the coma, the true mystery isn't just how fast
the object is spinning. The real mystery is what process
is creating such a vast, luminous and regular cloud of
gas and dust. The focus shifts from rotation to propulsion
or at least some kind of extreme thermal activity.
Speaker 1: This leads us directly to the catalog of anomalies. This
is the list of observations that, when you take them
all together, truly make three aaa las defy any easy
comet classification.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is where it gets really weird.
Speaker 1: Lobe argued that the objects simply did not behave like
any typical comet we have ever observed.
Speaker 2: Not at all, And the initial skepticism really started to
gain momentum in August as the object got nearer to
the sun and our telescopes could gather higher resolution data.
Speaker 1: Let's start with a brightness profile. The suggestion that the
glow wasn't just reflected sunlight, right.
Speaker 2: So Loban his colleagues they did an analysis of the
light intensity. How it falls off across the coma. In
a standard comet that's just reflecting solar light, you expect
a certain predictable brightness profile, a.
Speaker 1: Specific curve, and they didn't see that.
Speaker 2: Their analysis suggested that the light source was highly concentrated.
It seemed to be originating from a core diameter that
was potentially smaller than one hundred meters.
Speaker 1: One hundred meters. That's tiny in astronomical terms for an
object the size of Manhattan.
Speaker 2: It's a pin point. So why does a.
Speaker 1: Small, intensely bright source suggest an internal engine.
Speaker 2: Because if the light profile doesn't match standard solar reflection,
it implies the light is being generated from within that
small core.
Speaker 1: It's a light bulb, not a mirror.
Speaker 2: That's a great way to put it. For a nucleus
of that tiny size to generate enough sustained energy to
power the huge luminous coma they observed, it just strongly
suggests an internal power.
Speaker 1: Source, and Lobe took that idea to its conclusion.
Speaker 2: He did. He went so far as to hypothesize that
the nucleus itself could be nuclear or possibly an engine
crafted by alien people, something actively generating light and energy
independent of the passive reflection of the sun. It completely
challenges the basic assumption of a dormant icy rock.
Speaker 1: Okay, so that's the light. But then we moved to
the chemistry which this arguably provides the most jarring evidence
against the simple comet model. The extreme outgasing composition.
Speaker 2: This is a major, major surprise. It was observed during
the peak outgassing phase in August. The object was seen
glowing bright red and it was surrounded by this conspicuous
cloud of carbon dioxide CO two.
Speaker 1: Now, we expect comets to outgas as they heat up,
that's what comets do. But the problem here was the
ratio of the gases.
Speaker 2: Right, it was profoundly abnormal. Three ialas dumped a tremendous,
truly consticuous amount of CO two gas, but a surprisingly
small amount of both water H two O and carbon
monoxide COEO.
Speaker 1: So why is that specific ratio high CO two low
water so bizarre for typical commet.
Speaker 2: Well, it really boils down to this concept of the
snow line and where things form in a solar system.
Different volatiles freeze at different distances from a star. Okay,
water freezes relatively close in CO two freezes farther out,
and COO carbon monoxide freezes way way out in the
coldest regions. A classic comet, one from our own ort
cloud is usually rich in water.
Speaker 1: Ice because that's the most abundant stuff.
Speaker 2: Exactly for a body to have massive amounts of CO
two but be deficient in water the dominant Voldel it
suggests a really unusual formation history, or you know, maybe
some alternative explanation like selective composition loss over billions and
billions of years, but it doesn't fit our standard models.
Speaker 1: And the magnitude the sheer scale of this activity was
also shocking.
Speaker 2: Yes, this is a key point. Lobe noted that the
observed outgassing activity was sixteen times more extreme than what
was expected for a typical comet at the same distance
from the Sun.
Speaker 1: Sixteen times.
Speaker 2: We were talking about activity levels that are wildly disproportionate
to the solar energy it was receiving. This isn't just
a statistical outlier. It's a thermal event that far far
exceeds our models for standard ice sublimation.
Speaker 1: Sixteen times the expected rate is difficult enough to explain naturally,
But if the odd chemistry of the gas wasn't enough
we then arrive at the industrial signature, the bombshell, the
emission of a highly refined metal alloy. This, for many people,
this is the smoking gun of artificiality.
Speaker 2: This is truly monumental. Telescopes detected the object emitting nickel
tetracarbonal nickel tetricarbonyl.
Speaker 1: That is that is certainly not a compound I expect
to find in a natural space rock. Can you break
that down for us? What is it? And why is
its presence so hard to reconcile with natural astrochemistry?
Speaker 2: Nickel tetricarbonyl its chemical formulas. An ICEO four is a
highly toxic, pretty complex molecule. And crucially, it's not something
that just forms readily in the interstellar medium or even
inside a commt nucleus non natural. It's a highly refined
compound that plays a central role in industrial processes right
here on Earth, specifically something called the Moond process, which
is used to purify nickel to a very high grade.
Speaker 1: And what else is it used for.
Speaker 2: It's used in manufacturing and the aerospace industry for creating
extremely strong refined metal coatings, you know, to strengthen surface
materials like on.
Speaker 1: Spacecraft hole oh wait, the presence of a refined, highly
specific chemical that we use in our own aerospace manufacturing.
It suggests that the object has ever passed through some
truly unique, bizarre chemical environment we've never seen.
Speaker 2: Before, or or it was manufactured exactly. To generate this compound, naturally,
would require a very very specific combination of temperature, pressure,
and chemical equilibrium that is almost impossible to imagine being
maintained over the billions of years of a.
Speaker 1: Commet's life, or even forming in a protoplanetary disk in
the first place.
Speaker 2: Right, its detection just screams high temperature, highly controlled synthesis,
in other words, manufacturing. It is perhaps the single most
potent argument presented in the sources for a technological origin.
Speaker 1: So let's recap. We have a precisely pulsating object exhibiting
sixteen times the expected activity, it's chemically comprised at least
partly of an industrial alloy, and it's showing signs of
an internal light source.
Speaker 2: It's a long list.
Speaker 1: And if that wasn't enough, let's look at the kinematic evidence,
the motion, the speed.
Speaker 2: This is where we examine the object's movement itself. Love
cited a report from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory JPL that
provided evidence of non gravity acceleration.
Speaker 1: And this was as it approached its perihelion, its closest
point to the sun.
Speaker 2: Correct.
Speaker 1: Now, comments do experience this naturally, don't they. It's called
the rocket effect, when the sublimating ice sort of pushes
them slightly off their gravitational path.
Speaker 2: They do. And it's a standard, well understood low magnitude force.
But Lobe noted that three ielists was showing way more
ZIP than expected or zip. Let's put that into context.
The non gravitational force on a typical comma is generally
very minor. It only slightly alters the trajectory over long
periods of time. If the force detected on three iater
lasts exceeded this expected magnitude significantly, it moves the phenomenon
from passive venting to potentially active propulsion.
Speaker 1: So we're talking about a difference in magnitude that suggests efficiency. Right,
A highly efficient thruster system designed for steering would produce
a much stronger non gravitational push than just disorganized plumes
of sublimating ice.
Speaker 2: Precisely, if the force you need to explain the trajectory
perturbation is orders of magnitude greater than what basic sublimation
physics can account for than the simplest explanation. In some
ways is a controlled engine or thruster system operating with
high efficiency. This kinematic anomaly supports all the other structural
and chemical anomalies.
Speaker 1: The complexity just keeps piling on as the objects sped up.
It also changed colors and showed a complex jet structure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the color shift was peculiar. The object began appearing
bluer than the sun, bluer than the sun. Now, Lupi
hypothesized that this could be a natural signature. Maybe the
light was scattering off specific very small dust particles in
the coma, a phenomenon we understand. However, the dual hypothesis
suggests that if the light source is artificial, the bluer
color indicates higher energy or temperature.
Speaker 1: Right because in physics, bluer light corresponds to higher temperatures,
like a blacksmith heating metal from red hot to white
hot to.
Speaker 2: Blue hot exactly, So, if the blue light is being
generated by an internal source, it suggests a very very hot,
energetic engine.
Speaker 1: And what about the jets.
Speaker 2: The final piece of the visual evidence supporting the technological
hypothesis came from images captured on November eighth. They showed
a complex jet.
Speaker 1: Structure, meaning not just one big plume right.
Speaker 2: Instead of a simple uniform plume that you'd associate with
a single pocket of sublimating ice, the images showed multiple
potentially regulated jets. Lobe suggested this could be a set
of thrusters used for navigation and stabilization, like the complex
maneuvering system on a sophisticated spacecraft, rather than just simple
chaotic venting.
Speaker 1: Wow, it sounds like based on the evidence Log and
his team compiled, this object is almost explicitly designed to
confuse us. We have the periodicity, the industrial alloys, extreme outgassing,
excessive acceleration, complex jets.
Speaker 2: It's a whole suite of anomalies.
Speaker 1: But as responsible scientists, we can't just accept the most
exotic explanation without a fight. We have to acknowledge the
significant scientific counter narrative.
Speaker 2: That's absolutely essential, and the overwhelming consensus from now in
the wider astronomical community leans heavily toward natural explanations, even
if they require stretching our current models quite a bit.
Speaker 1: What's the core of their dismissal of Lobe's claims.
Speaker 2: It often revolves around the idea that while the anomalies
are extreme, they are still within the realm of potential
cometary diversity, especially for an interstellar object which might have
formed in conditions far, far different from our own solar system.
Speaker 1: So what are some of the specific rebuttals that were
cited in the sources.
Speaker 2: They range from methodological criticism like claims that focusing on
the technological hypothesis is irresponsible science that just sensationalizes the data,
to simpler arguments rooted in probability. Many mainstream astronomers argue
that the individual anomalies are just coincidences and that eventually,
you know, a natural explanation will be found for all
of them, one by one.
Speaker 1: The argument being that once an object is large enough,
close enough to the Sun and reflecting enough light, it
basically conforms to the physics of a comet. And they're
discovering a lot of these things every night.
Speaker 2: That's the general idea, But the scientific community knew they
needed something concrete, a definitive piece of evidence that could
bring this whole conversation back to fundamental natural processes to
counter those industrial signature claims, and they found it they did.
This is the crucial turning point in the narrative. The
key counter evidence arrived on October twenty fourth through radio astronomy.
It provided the smoking gun for water.
Speaker 1: Okay, tell us about this radio signal discovery and the
significance of these hydrochyle radicals.
Speaker 2: On October twenty fourth, the Mercat radio telescope in South
Africa successfully detected a very faint radio signal that was
originating from three I eight.
Speaker 1: Lasts And this signal contained what.
Speaker 2: It contained, definitive radio absorption lines by hydroxyl radicals. Ohh.
And this wasn't just a lucky random detection. It was
the result of persistent efforts after two failed attempts back
in September, which really shows the community's focus on identifying
known cometary signatures.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's break down the chemistry here for a second.
Why is oh an unambiguous signature of water loss and
why does this one observation ground the argument so firmly
that this is just a comment.
Speaker 2: So hydroxyl radicals are a direct byproduct of water molecules
H two O interacting with the sun. When water ice
sublimates and escapes the comet's nucleus, the ultraviolet radiation from
the sun is powerful enough to strip off one of
the hydrogen atoms.
Speaker 1: It breaks the water molecule apart.
Speaker 2: Exactly, it breaks the H two molecule into an OH
radical and a single hydrogen atom H. The process is
called photodissociation.
Speaker 1: So if you detect OH, you are absolutely one hundred
percent confirming that H two is being lost from the object.
Speaker 2: Precisely. The detection of OH strongly suggests that three I
lisses actively losing water while flying by the sun, and
water loss is the defining characteristic of an icy body
a comet. It directly refutes any claim that the object
is purely a complex, dry engineered structure incapable of natural processes.
It proves that despite those unusual ratios we talked about earlier,
water ice is present and it is active.
Speaker 1: This forces us into the synthesis moment. Then we now
have two competing, highly detailed sets of evidence. How do
we reconcile the fact that three iadalysts simultaneously possesses the
unambiguous signature of natural water loss. The OH and the
chemical signature of highly refined industrial manufacturing the nickel tetracarbonyl.
Speaker 2: And that is the profound scientific tension that keeps this
mystery alive. The mainstream argument it attempts to dismiss the
nickel tetracarbonyl as an anomaly we just don't understand yet.
They argue that the OH detection trumps everything else, confirming
its fundamental nature as an icy body.
Speaker 1: So they might speculate that the nickel compounds were formed
through some highly unusual localized thermal events inside the nucleus
that our models just haven't accounted for yet exactly.
Speaker 2: But the LoVa hypothesis forces a deeper consideration, doesn't it.
It pushes us to consider if the object could be
partially natural and partially technological hybrid. Absolutely, what if the
object isn't a ship built from scratch, but rather a
structure that utilized a natural captured icy body, as say
a shield or a fuel source.
Speaker 1: So a probe might have been encased in a massive
natural water ice shell for billions of years to protect
it from interstellar radiation.
Speaker 2: And now that shell is shedding as it gets close
to our Sun, revealing the technological core underneath. Which is
why we would see the industrial alloy and the oh
lines at the same time.
Speaker 1: That is a mind bending hypothesis.
Speaker 2: It is, but it's the kind of hypothesis that contradictory
data forces you to entertain. The fact is, the detection
of both makes this object completely unique, whether it turns
out to be natural or artificial.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's move past the contradiction for a moment and
look toward the future. We need to talk about monitoring
this mystery. The object's closest approach to the Sun, it's perihelium.
That was a critical moment.
Speaker 2: The perihelium occurred on October twenty ninth. Unfortunately for all
of us here on Earth, this was the absolute worst
time to watch. Why three I Atlas was effectively unobservable
from Earth because the Sun was directly positioned between us
and the object. It was in what's called solar conjunction.
Speaker 1: So we were blinded by the Sun just when things
got most interesting exactly.
Speaker 2: Low may be a bit playfully mused whether this occultation
might have been for a reason, but in reality it
was likely just an unlucky coincidence and timing, so we missed.
Speaker 1: The closest most heated approach. But what have we learned
about its resilience? Did it survive?
Speaker 2: It did despite the difficulty. Observations confirmed that the object
maintained its structural integrity. It did not break up into
smaller fragments, which often happens to less robust comets during
that intense solar heating.
Speaker 1: That suggests a highly cohesive structure, regardless of whether that
cohesion comes from incredibly strong ice or you know, a
technological superstructure.
Speaker 2: Right. And we also confirm that jets were still visible
coming from it after it emerged from behind the sun.
Speaker 1: And what's the most recent phenomenon Low has been studying
related to that structural.
Speaker 2: INTI He's currently analyzing a phenomenon called tidal disruption. He
observed a razor thin stream of material trailing the object.
But what made this peculiar was that the material was
observed streaming both in the direction of the sun and
opposite to the sun.
Speaker 1: That seems counterintuitive for a single injection. Why would materials
stream in two opposing directions at once.
Speaker 2: This is a classic sign that supports the theory of
tidal disruption. Tidal forces are the differential gravitational forces exerted
by a large object, in this case, our Sun, across
the breadth of a smaller object.
Speaker 1: So the Sun's gravity pulls harder on the side of
three ilis facing it.
Speaker 2: And less hard on the side facing away. If the
object is fragile, this gravitational gradient literally stretches the object
like taffy.
Speaker 1: So the gravity of the Sun is physically stretching it,
drawing out streams of material from both the near and
the far side simultaneously exactly.
Speaker 2: Lois studying the possibility that these two streams of material
stretched by the Sun's gravitational tide have been elongated to
an enormous scale. We're talking perhaps a million kilometers or
even longer.
Speaker 1: And what does that mean for the debate?
Speaker 2: Well, if confirmed, tidal disruption is a powerful natural process
that explains mass loss without requiring any kind of active propulsion,
it suggests the material streams we're seeing are merely the
Sun shredding the outer layers of a fragile object. It's
a strong data point for the It's just a comet
side though, you still have to account for the internal composition.
Speaker 1: So what does all this mean for getting a final
definitive answer. Loweb provided a really clear roadmap. Didn't He
three specific methods that scientists should pursue with the incoming
data to settle this question.
Speaker 2: Yes, and this roadmap is crucial because it transforms the
debate from philosophical speculation into empirical measurement. It gives us
a way to test it, okay.
Speaker 1: Method one is all about confirming the precision of that pulse.
Speaker 2: Yes, real time monitoring scientists must create a high resolution
movie of the object to see precisely how it brightens
and dims. This means confirming that the sixteen point sixteen
hour pulse is maintained consistently even as the distance from
the sun changes and the heating changes.
Speaker 1: And if the cadence is absolutely clockwork regardless of external influence.
Speaker 2: It strengthens the case for an internally controlled cycle. But
if the timing varies even slightly based on solar heating,
it would support the natural rotation and sublimation model.
Speaker 1: Message two focuses on the direction of the variation, which
seems like a powerful way to distinguish between the two
core hypotheses.
Speaker 2: This is critical for figuring out the source of the jets.
Scientists need to monitor whether the jets and the brightness
variations are oriented in the direction of the sun, which.
Speaker 1: Is the hallmark of a natural process driven by solar
heating right.
Speaker 2: Venting along the line of maximum heat, or they need
to see if the ejections are in some other arbitrary.
Speaker 1: Direction, and an arbitrary direction would suggest it.
Speaker 2: Would suggest active intentional navigation. Imagine a ship adjusting its
course it fires, is a thruster in the direction it
needs to go to change trajectory, not simply because the
sun is heating that particular side of the hull. Observing
highly controlled jet directionality unrelated to the sun's angle would
be a very strong indicator of technology.
Speaker 1: Okay, And finally, method three gets to the heart of
the rocket effect versus alien engine comparison. This is about
analyzing the speed and composition of the mass being lost.
Speaker 2: This is the most crucial quantifiable tests of all. Researchers
must determine the speed, the precise composition, and the fraction
of mass being lost in those jets. We know that
sublimation processes ice turning to gas produce relatively slow moving jets.
Speaker 1: A few hundred meters per second, maybe.
Speaker 2: Right, But if analysis shows that the jets are moving
at orders of magnitude larger speed, say kilometers per second
rather than meters per second than what's expected from the
slow release of gases from ice.
Speaker 1: That would strongly suggest control technologically produced propulsion.
Speaker 2: It would have to It would require a highly efficient,
focused energy lease that only an engine, as we understand it,
can provide.
Speaker 1: So we know, the best data so far came from
Hubble back in July and the James Webb Space Telescope
in August. When can we expect this crucial new data
to execute Lobe's roadmap and potentially finally resolve this debate.
Speaker 2: The scientific community is anticipating a significant flood of additional
high resolution data in early December. This will come from
both Hubble and.
Speaker 1: Web and these space based observations are vital.
Speaker 2: They're everything. They aren't hampered by Earth's atmosphere, which allows
for incredibly precise, compositional and kinematic analysis, and that will
supplement the continuous tracking that's already underway by hundreds of
global observatories.
Speaker 1: And all of this immense scientific effort is leading toward
one specific moment.
Speaker 2: The grand finale December nineteenth, twenty twenty five, That is
the date that three ILS will make its closest passive Earth.
It'll be at roughly one hundred and fifty million miles,
which is still very far, of course, but it provides
the absolute best viewing geometry and proximity for scientists to
gather the highest quality data possible to definitively determine its nature.
The next few weeks are going to be absolutely electrifying
for astronomers around the world.
Speaker 1: What was av Loobis's final reflective thought on this entire event?
Regardless of the final outcome.
Speaker 2: He acknowledged that whether THREEILS is a massive, odd rocky
iceberg or a sophisticated alien probe, its journey through our
Solar system is a momentous occasion for astronomy. He concluded
that we should regard it as a very lucky blind
date from interstellar space. I like that. Yeah, he's emphasizing
that the sheer opportunity for discovery, the chance to examine
material from another star system up close, is invaluable no
matter what it turns out to be.
Speaker 1: This has been an extraordinary deep dive. We've synthesized two
incredibly distinct narratives. On one side, You've got compelling fundamental
scientific data supporting natural cometary behavior, the hydroxyl radical signature
confirming water loss, the evidence of tidal disruption, and.
Speaker 2: On the other side you have these profound un anomalies,
the industrial signature of nickel tetracarbonol, this sixteen times more
extreme outgassing, the non gravitational acceleration, and of course that
precise sixteen point sixteen hour pulse.
Speaker 1: The tension is rooted in the fact that we have
never ever observed an object that simultaneously presents such strong
evidence for both natural formation and industrial processing.
Speaker 2: It forces us to stretch our understanding of one of
two things. Either natural processes in exotic star systems are
far weirder than we imagined, or the potential scope of
alien engineering is something we have to start taking seriously.
Speaker 1: It certainly elevates the stakes of discovery. Whether it turns
out to be a comet that completely challenges our models
of astrochemistry or turns out to be proof of engineering,
the insights we're going to gain in December will fundamentally
alter our view of the universe.
Speaker 2: I agree the journey of three Ithos has already pushed
the boundaries of what we thought was possible in celestial
mechanics and chemistry.
Speaker 1: So here's the question for you, our listener, to ponder
as we all wait for the data from December nineteenth.
Given all the evidence we've discussed the natural signatures versus
the industrial anomalies, which factor do you find most difficult
to explain with a purely natural model? Is that the
highly refined industrial signature of nickel petricarbonyl which seems to
just scream manufacturing?
Speaker 2: Or is it the mathematically precise sixteen point one cen
hour heartbeat pulse that seems almost too regular two clockwork
for passive ice sublimation.
Speaker 1: And what outcome do you anticipate scientists will confirm on
December nineteenth, I.
Speaker 2: For one can't wait to see what answers those space
telescopes to provide.
Speaker 1: Let us know, Share your thoughts and theories with us
Until next time, keep following the thrilling threads of discovery