1
00:00:00,080 --> 00:00:03,080
Speaker 1: Imagine the scenario and try to really picture it. You're

2
00:00:03,120 --> 00:00:05,360
not just in the dark. You are in the deepest,

3
00:00:05,440 --> 00:00:10,720
most profound darkness imaginable. We're talking the remote desert of Namibia.

4
00:00:10,880 --> 00:00:14,480
Astraphotographers have set up specifically timing this for a lunar eclipse.

5
00:00:14,599 --> 00:00:18,120
That's the ultimate blackout right, the Earth's own shadow blots out,

6
00:00:18,120 --> 00:00:20,000
the Moon kills any stray like pollution.

7
00:00:20,320 --> 00:00:22,480
Speaker 2: You get this almost perfect view of the cosmos.

8
00:00:23,120 --> 00:00:26,160
Speaker 1: Now, these photographers, they aren't aiming at some familiar galaxy

9
00:00:26,239 --> 00:00:30,199
or nebula, know they're pointing their instruments at this mysterious,

10
00:00:30,280 --> 00:00:33,359
relatively new object just passing through our solar system.

11
00:00:33,640 --> 00:00:36,119
Speaker 3: And when they got those images back, what they saw

12
00:00:36,280 --> 00:00:38,799
just immediately through well pretty much everything we thought we

13
00:00:38,880 --> 00:00:43,000
knew about comets into question. The object was glowing this

14
00:00:43,159 --> 00:00:48,320
really distinctive, vibrant, almost shockingly bright green. This visitor it's

15
00:00:48,359 --> 00:00:51,159
designated three eye Atlas. That means it's only the third

16
00:00:51,200 --> 00:00:54,719
confirmed interstellar object we've ever spotted coming through our neighborhood.

17
00:00:55,119 --> 00:00:57,560
But the mystery isn't just that it's here. It's that

18
00:00:57,719 --> 00:00:59,880
every single piece of data we get back from it,

19
00:01:00,000 --> 00:01:03,759
it's weird chemical makeup to how incredibly steady it's moving.

20
00:01:04,280 --> 00:01:07,359
It all suggests it shouldn't really exist, not like this anyway,

21
00:01:07,400 --> 00:01:08,840
not according to physics we understand.

22
00:01:09,000 --> 00:01:12,040
Speaker 1: Okay, right, let's really untack this then furthest deep dive.

23
00:01:12,439 --> 00:01:16,920
We're essentially looking at three massive, kind of interlocking paradoxes.

24
00:01:17,040 --> 00:01:18,599
Speaker 2: The source material lays out.

25
00:01:18,959 --> 00:01:21,599
Speaker 1: First, you've got the chemical puzzle, why is it glowing

26
00:01:21,640 --> 00:01:25,159
bright green when apparently it lacks the basic fuel the

27
00:01:25,200 --> 00:01:27,879
stuff needed to make that green color. Second, there's the

28
00:01:27,879 --> 00:01:28,920
physics of its movement.

29
00:01:28,959 --> 00:01:29,480
Speaker 2: Why is it.

30
00:01:29,439 --> 00:01:34,640
Speaker 1: Cruising along with this uncanny, almost well intentional seeming stability.

31
00:01:34,680 --> 00:01:37,560
It just defies the random pushes and pulls you'd expect

32
00:01:37,560 --> 00:01:39,920
out there. And Third, and this one's wild. There's this

33
00:01:40,000 --> 00:01:43,599
almost unbelievable historical coincidence. It connects this modern day visitor

34
00:01:43,640 --> 00:01:46,760
directly to one of the biggest, most talked about unsolved

35
00:01:46,760 --> 00:01:48,439
cosmic mysteries from back in the seventies.

36
00:01:48,519 --> 00:01:50,719
Speaker 3: Yeah, our mission here is really to dig deeper than

37
00:01:50,920 --> 00:01:54,079
just you know, oh, look a weird space rock. We

38
00:01:54,159 --> 00:01:57,719
need to understand the essential unique data points about three

39
00:01:57,760 --> 00:02:00,680
i at lists. We absolutely have to approach this not

40
00:02:00,799 --> 00:02:03,840
as just another comet, but it is something that fundamentally

41
00:02:03,920 --> 00:02:07,359
challenges our baseline assumptions about what can wander in from

42
00:02:07,400 --> 00:02:11,199
interstellar space, because the data it isn't just raising questions,

43
00:02:11,319 --> 00:02:15,479
it's presenting flat out contradictions. And those contradictions, well, they

44
00:02:15,520 --> 00:02:18,840
demand we start considering possibilities beyond just standard space debris.

45
00:02:18,879 --> 00:02:22,080
Speaker 1: So that journey really starts with that first stunning picture

46
00:02:22,120 --> 00:02:25,199
from Namibia, right, that intense green glow of three I

47
00:02:25,319 --> 00:02:27,479
at lists. Now, I think for most people the initial

48
00:02:27,479 --> 00:02:29,919
reaction is probably Okay, green comet looks cool, But.

49
00:02:30,280 --> 00:02:32,319
Speaker 2: Don't commets do that? And I mean that'd be right,

50
00:02:32,360 --> 00:02:32,800
wouldn't they?

51
00:02:32,879 --> 00:02:37,280
Speaker 3: They absolutely would. Comets turning green is a pretty standard

52
00:02:37,319 --> 00:02:40,120
behavior actually, and because it's normal, we've got the chemistry

53
00:02:40,120 --> 00:02:43,560
mapped out quite well. That classic green color happens when

54
00:02:43,680 --> 00:02:47,000
ultraviolet radiation from the Sun interacts with something called diatomic

55
00:02:47,120 --> 00:02:50,840
carbon or C two, that's just two carbon atoms bonded together.

56
00:02:51,120 --> 00:02:53,840
When sunlight hits those C two molecules in the comets

57
00:02:53,840 --> 00:02:56,680
coma that's the fuzzy halo of gas and dust around

58
00:02:56,719 --> 00:02:59,960
the solid nucleus, it excites them and they fluoresce. They

59
00:03:00,080 --> 00:03:01,639
glow green, simple.

60
00:03:01,400 --> 00:03:03,960
Speaker 1: Enough, usually okay, but this is where it all falls apart.

61
00:03:03,960 --> 00:03:07,360
For three eyeat lists, because observations spectral analysis from all

62
00:03:07,360 --> 00:03:11,360
the major telescopes over months, they revealed this impossible contradiction.

63
00:03:11,840 --> 00:03:14,439
Three I at liss is critically deficient in C two molecules.

64
00:03:14,680 --> 00:03:17,120
There's hardly any there. It just shouldn't have the raw

65
00:03:17,199 --> 00:03:19,520
ingredients to produce that intense green light we're seeing, and

66
00:03:19,560 --> 00:03:20,960
yet there it is, glowing green.

67
00:03:21,280 --> 00:03:25,719
Speaker 3: It's a spectroscopist's nightmare. Honestly, when we use spectroscopy, we're

68
00:03:25,719 --> 00:03:29,120
basically taking a chemical fingerprint of the object. By breaking

69
00:03:29,159 --> 00:03:32,039
down the light it emits or reflects. Shine light through

70
00:03:32,080 --> 00:03:35,199
a prism, you get a spectrum or rainbow. Missing lines

71
00:03:35,280 --> 00:03:37,400
or extra bright lines in that spectrum tell you exactly

72
00:03:37,479 --> 00:03:40,599
what chemicals are present. For three eye atlas, that C

73
00:03:40,719 --> 00:03:43,840
two signature, that fingerprint, it was either completely missing or

74
00:03:43,919 --> 00:03:46,719
so faint that couldn't possibly explain how visually bright that

75
00:03:46,800 --> 00:03:49,960
green glow is. This sense scientist scrambling trying to find

76
00:03:49,960 --> 00:03:53,000
some other molecule, maybe some really exotic unknown carbon compound

77
00:03:53,159 --> 00:03:55,840
that could somehow mimic that C two green emission, but

78
00:03:56,400 --> 00:03:59,719
nothing fit the data. Nothing worked, So the paradox remains

79
00:03:59,719 --> 00:04:03,360
app salute. We see the effect the green glow, but

80
00:04:03,439 --> 00:04:06,360
the known cause, the C two, is basically absent.

81
00:04:06,319 --> 00:04:07,879
Speaker 2: And the chemistry just gets stranger.

82
00:04:07,919 --> 00:04:10,199
Speaker 1: When you look at what is abundant in its coma,

83
00:04:10,240 --> 00:04:13,120
its atmosphere, it's not C two. It's primarily CO two

84
00:04:13,159 --> 00:04:16,560
carbon dioxide, basically dry ice and having lots of CO

85
00:04:16,759 --> 00:04:20,120
two that makes the object incredibly bright overall.

86
00:04:19,800 --> 00:04:22,519
Speaker 2: Which it is. But CO two doesn't glow green.

87
00:04:23,199 --> 00:04:26,079
Speaker 1: It has a completely different chemical signature when it interacts with.

88
00:04:26,120 --> 00:04:29,079
Speaker 3: Sunlight right, and that CO two dominance is highly anomalous

89
00:04:29,079 --> 00:04:31,600
in itself, especially when you compare it to the amount

90
00:04:31,639 --> 00:04:34,600
of water. A typical comet, one that formed here in

91
00:04:34,639 --> 00:04:36,680
our solar system, may be out in the Ord cloud

92
00:04:36,879 --> 00:04:40,920
way beyond Pluto. It's overwhelmingly made of water ice frozen

93
00:04:41,040 --> 00:04:43,560
H two oz. You normally see a chemical ratio heavily

94
00:04:43,560 --> 00:04:46,920
skewed towards water with much less CO two, but three

95
00:04:46,959 --> 00:04:50,600
I atlas. It's chemically flipped upside down. It's CO two

96
00:04:50,759 --> 00:04:54,800
content massively outweighs the amount of water vapor scientists have detected.

97
00:04:55,040 --> 00:04:56,680
Speaker 2: So let's try an analogy to make that clear.

98
00:04:56,720 --> 00:04:59,160
Speaker 1: If a standard comet from our backyard is like a giant,

99
00:04:59,199 --> 00:05:02,199
dirty snowball mostly frozen water with some dust and maybe

100
00:05:02,240 --> 00:05:02,759
a little.

101
00:05:02,560 --> 00:05:03,519
Speaker 2: Dry ice mixed in.

102
00:05:03,920 --> 00:05:06,759
Speaker 1: Then three I atlas is more like a giant, dirty

103
00:05:06,759 --> 00:05:08,639
block of dry ice with maybe just a little bit

104
00:05:08,639 --> 00:05:09,600
of water ice on it.

105
00:05:09,800 --> 00:05:11,800
Speaker 3: That's a pretty good way to put it. Yeah, and

106
00:05:11,879 --> 00:05:15,439
that inversion that CO two dominance immediately tells us something

107
00:05:15,439 --> 00:05:18,600
crucial about where this thing must have formed. It strongly

108
00:05:18,639 --> 00:05:21,519
suggests an origin environment that was vastly different from where

109
00:05:21,560 --> 00:05:25,839
our comics form, specifically much much colder. See in any

110
00:05:25,839 --> 00:05:28,079
star system, there's what we call the water ice line.

111
00:05:28,399 --> 00:05:30,399
It's the distance from the star where it gets cold

112
00:05:30,439 --> 00:05:33,240
enough for water vapor to freeze into solid ice. Water

113
00:05:33,319 --> 00:05:37,120
freezes relatively easily, methane freezes further out, whereas colder still

114
00:05:37,600 --> 00:05:40,480
and then way way out in the really frigid zones,

115
00:05:40,480 --> 00:05:44,399
carbon dioxide can finally condense into solid ice for CO

116
00:05:44,600 --> 00:05:47,040
two ice to be the main ingredient. Three ie atlasts

117
00:05:47,160 --> 00:05:49,800
likely formed much much farther from its parent star that

118
00:05:49,920 --> 00:05:52,680
our comets did from our Sun, maybe in the extremely

119
00:05:52,720 --> 00:05:55,639
cold outer reaches of a distant stars debris disk, or

120
00:05:55,680 --> 00:05:59,519
perhaps even in a standalone interstellar molecular cloud. The simple

121
00:05:59,519 --> 00:06:02,199
fact that it's primarily dry eyes, not water. Ice just

122
00:06:02,240 --> 00:06:06,199
screams alien. It's fundamentally different from what we typically find

123
00:06:06,199 --> 00:06:07,279
in our own solar system.

124
00:06:07,360 --> 00:06:10,000
Speaker 1: Okay, so we've got the impossible green glow, the weirdly

125
00:06:10,040 --> 00:06:13,480
inverted ice composition, But then comes the real head scratcher,

126
00:06:13,680 --> 00:06:18,240
the third chemical component metal. This object is actively releasing

127
00:06:18,360 --> 00:06:20,360
nickel vapor into its coma.

128
00:06:20,439 --> 00:06:23,519
Speaker 3: Releasing nickel is a huge, huge red flag, especially given

129
00:06:23,560 --> 00:06:27,360
where it was doing it. To vaporize heavy metal compounds,

130
00:06:27,399 --> 00:06:31,160
things like nickel or iron usually need intense heat. We're

131
00:06:31,160 --> 00:06:35,240
talking hundreds of degrees celsius for comets. That typically only

132
00:06:35,240 --> 00:06:37,639
happens when they get really close to the Sun, sometimes

133
00:06:37,680 --> 00:06:40,920
swinging inside the orbit of mercury. The sheer intensity of

134
00:06:40,959 --> 00:06:42,399
the Sun acts like a furnace.

135
00:06:42,480 --> 00:06:45,240
Speaker 1: All right, but the contradiction here is just massive, isn't it.

136
00:06:45,279 --> 00:06:48,160
Three I Atlas was detected releasing this nickel vapor when

137
00:06:48,160 --> 00:06:50,480
it was still way out there, somewhere between the orbits

138
00:06:50,519 --> 00:06:53,759
of Mars and Jupiter. It wasn't anywhere near close enough

139
00:06:53,759 --> 00:06:56,560
to the Sun for any known natural process to generate

140
00:06:56,600 --> 00:06:58,480
that kind of heat and vaporized metal.

141
00:06:58,519 --> 00:07:03,079
Speaker 3: It seems well physically impossible by standard commentary physics. It does,

142
00:07:03,120 --> 00:07:05,720
and this is where you have to discuss all possibilities,

143
00:07:05,720 --> 00:07:08,040
even the less conventional ones. We need to be impartial.

144
00:07:08,560 --> 00:07:12,360
This unexplained early nickel release, combined with the high CO

145
00:07:12,519 --> 00:07:15,959
two exhaust it has led some researchers, some analysts to

146
00:07:16,000 --> 00:07:19,959
propose a non natural or let's say, engineered counter hypothesis.

147
00:07:20,279 --> 00:07:23,519
Think about high performance rocket engines, particularly ones designed for

148
00:07:23,519 --> 00:07:27,360
long duration deep space missions. They often use specialized metal alloys,

149
00:07:27,639 --> 00:07:30,839
alloys high end nickel, because nickel is incredibly durable and

150
00:07:30,920 --> 00:07:34,040
handles heat stress really well. Now, when you fire these

151
00:07:34,120 --> 00:07:36,360
kinds of engines, or even if the propulsion system is

152
00:07:36,399 --> 00:07:39,839
just venting excess fuel or reaction mass, the exhaust often

153
00:07:39,879 --> 00:07:42,360
contains high levels of CO two and trace amounts of

154
00:07:42,439 --> 00:07:44,600
nickel vapor from the engine components themselves.

155
00:07:44,759 --> 00:07:45,079
Speaker 2: Wow.

156
00:07:45,160 --> 00:07:47,879
Speaker 1: So the alignment of those specific signature is the nickel

157
00:07:47,920 --> 00:07:49,720
metal vapor and the CO two gas.

158
00:07:49,759 --> 00:07:52,079
Speaker 2: That's highly suggestive, to say the least.

159
00:07:53,240 --> 00:07:57,240
Speaker 1: Obviously, the scientific community tends to lean towards assuming there

160
00:07:57,279 --> 00:08:00,800
must be some unknown, maybe exotic, natural process causing this.

161
00:08:00,839 --> 00:08:01,920
Speaker 2: That's the default position.

162
00:08:02,480 --> 00:08:04,759
Speaker 1: But you're saying the fact remains that the only readily

163
00:08:04,800 --> 00:08:07,879
available explanation that neatly accounts for both the early metal

164
00:08:07,959 --> 00:08:11,560
vaporization and that specific gas profile is one involving some

165
00:08:11,680 --> 00:08:12,879
kind of engineered system.

166
00:08:13,000 --> 00:08:16,480
Speaker 3: That's the uncomfortable coincidence. Yes, we have to report that

167
00:08:16,519 --> 00:08:18,920
the observed data points early nickel release far from the

168
00:08:18,959 --> 00:08:22,120
sun high CO two output line up remarkably well with

169
00:08:22,160 --> 00:08:24,920
what you might expect from a propulsion system venting material.

170
00:08:25,680 --> 00:08:28,560
It then becomes a question of wane probabilities. Is it

171
00:08:28,600 --> 00:08:32,279
more likely an unknown exotic natural phenomenon we've never seen before,

172
00:08:32,639 --> 00:08:36,039
or is it possibly an unproven artificial mechanism. The data

173
00:08:36,120 --> 00:08:39,000
currently fits the artificial profile quite snugly.

174
00:08:38,639 --> 00:08:41,799
Speaker 1: So it forces us to ask that question. If three

175
00:08:41,799 --> 00:08:45,759
I atlas were just a random piece of natural interstellar debris,

176
00:08:46,279 --> 00:08:49,559
why does its chemical signature look so uncannily like the

177
00:08:49,679 --> 00:08:53,639
exhaust from advanced human engineering. This object doesn't just look

178
00:08:53,639 --> 00:08:56,399
alien because it came from far away. Its actual chemical

179
00:08:56,440 --> 00:09:00,360
behavior seems to actively mock our standard models for comic and.

180
00:09:00,279 --> 00:09:04,840
Speaker 3: If the chemistry makes you think engineered, well, its movement

181
00:09:04,879 --> 00:09:07,559
practically screens it. If three I at lists were just

182
00:09:07,559 --> 00:09:11,559
a natural comet behaving normally, especially an active one, releasing gas.

183
00:09:11,720 --> 00:09:15,720
It should be tumbling and jetting around unpredictably, wildly erratic, really,

184
00:09:16,200 --> 00:09:19,080
but it's stillness. It's steadiness that might be the most

185
00:09:19,200 --> 00:09:20,799
unnerving paradox of the whole thing.

186
00:09:20,919 --> 00:09:24,120
Speaker 1: Right, So to really appreciate how weirdly steady it is,

187
00:09:24,200 --> 00:09:26,360
we need a quick primer on how commets usually move.

188
00:09:26,440 --> 00:09:28,840
Speaker 2: Right, This non gravitational acceleration thing.

189
00:09:28,720 --> 00:09:32,720
Speaker 3: Exactly nnga non gravitational acceleration. So as a comet gets

190
00:09:32,720 --> 00:09:35,879
closer to the Sun, the increasing heat causes sublimation. We

191
00:09:35,960 --> 00:09:38,600
talked about that the ice turns directly into gas, skipping

192
00:09:38,600 --> 00:09:40,039
the liquid stage, and that.

193
00:09:39,879 --> 00:09:42,200
Speaker 1: Gas doesn't just float away nicely, does it? If it

194
00:09:42,279 --> 00:09:44,600
vents out from say a weak spot on the surface

195
00:09:44,679 --> 00:09:47,120
or a side that's getting more direct sunlight. It acts

196
00:09:47,159 --> 00:09:50,240
like a little rocket engine, right, the natural thruster.

197
00:09:50,039 --> 00:09:54,279
Speaker 3: Precisely like a tiny, very poorly controlled thruster. And these

198
00:09:54,320 --> 00:09:58,440
little gas jets push the comet around randomly. They slightly

199
00:09:58,480 --> 00:10:02,559
alter its pathe it away from the perfectly predictable trajectory

200
00:10:02,559 --> 00:10:04,200
that gravity alone would dictate.

201
00:10:04,279 --> 00:10:07,120
Speaker 1: Okay, so astronomers can actually measure this push.

202
00:10:06,879 --> 00:10:11,200
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, meticulously. They calculate the object's expected path based

203
00:10:11,240 --> 00:10:14,919
only on gravity, you know, Kepler's laws, Newton's laws. That's

204
00:10:14,919 --> 00:10:17,600
the baseline. Then they measure where the object actually is

205
00:10:17,720 --> 00:10:19,879
day by day and see how far it deviates from

206
00:10:19,919 --> 00:10:23,639
that purely gravitational path. That deviation amount is the NGA

207
00:10:23,960 --> 00:10:27,360
for any active content. That NGA value should fluctuate, sometimes

208
00:10:27,440 --> 00:10:29,919
quite dramatically. The jets are random. They turn on, they

209
00:10:29,960 --> 00:10:32,440
turn off, they change direction as the comet rotates and

210
00:10:32,480 --> 00:10:33,919
different parts heat up unevenly.

211
00:10:34,120 --> 00:10:37,120
Speaker 2: It should be messy, but three iAtlas is clearly active.

212
00:10:37,279 --> 00:10:37,840
We know it is.

213
00:10:37,919 --> 00:10:40,440
Speaker 1: It's releasing all that weird CO two in the nickel vapor.

214
00:10:40,799 --> 00:10:43,960
It even grew a tail, which is direct visual proof

215
00:10:43,960 --> 00:10:47,039
that sublimation is happening. Yet, despite showing all these signs

216
00:10:47,080 --> 00:10:49,799
of active gas release, the data shows it has maintained

217
00:10:49,840 --> 00:10:53,240
an almost perfectly consistent trajectory and velocity ever since we

218
00:10:53,279 --> 00:10:54,519
started tracking it closely.

219
00:10:54,679 --> 00:10:59,039
Speaker 3: It's yeah, unsettlingly quiet is the word. We've quantified its

220
00:10:59,120 --> 00:11:03,960
movement measure that since early May, it's daily variation how

221
00:11:04,039 --> 00:11:07,000
much it deviates from that purely gravitational path each day,

222
00:11:07,360 --> 00:11:10,480
has only fluctuated by about one point five kilometers one

223
00:11:10,480 --> 00:11:13,120
and a half kilometers per day. Now, that number one

224
00:11:13,120 --> 00:11:15,879
point five kilometers day might not sound like much until

225
00:11:15,919 --> 00:11:18,879
you compare it to other objects, and that comparative analysis

226
00:11:18,919 --> 00:11:21,639
is where the data becomes frankly statistically stunning.

227
00:11:21,720 --> 00:11:22,399
Speaker 2: Wait, hang on a sec.

228
00:11:22,440 --> 00:11:24,600
Speaker 1: Before we jump into comparisons, let me ask maybe a

229
00:11:24,600 --> 00:11:27,639
basic physics question. If three i outlas is pretty big,

230
00:11:27,679 --> 00:11:30,320
I mean, presumably larger than a small asteroid, wouldn't it

231
00:11:30,360 --> 00:11:33,200
just be harder to push around anyway? Like more inertia?

232
00:11:33,320 --> 00:11:36,799
Is this NNGA metric somehow adjusted for the object's mass.

233
00:11:36,879 --> 00:11:39,440
Speaker 3: That's a purpectly fair question. And yes, mass is a factor,

234
00:11:39,840 --> 00:11:42,000
but we account for that by comparing it specifically to

235
00:11:42,399 --> 00:11:45,840
other known comets that are similar in size or even bigger.

236
00:11:46,279 --> 00:11:47,480
Let's look at the benchmarks.

237
00:11:47,639 --> 00:11:49,679
Speaker 1: Okay, so where do we start. How about the most

238
00:11:49,960 --> 00:11:54,240
normal interstellar visitor we've seen so far two Iboris.

239
00:11:53,759 --> 00:11:57,399
Speaker 3: Off good starting point. Boris Off was a hefty object,

240
00:11:57,480 --> 00:12:00,840
definitely interstellar, and it behaved much like a typical active

241
00:12:00,879 --> 00:12:04,840
comet from our own system. Its sublimation jets were clearly active,

242
00:12:05,200 --> 00:12:08,080
and they caused it to fluctuate. Get this, over one

243
00:12:08,159 --> 00:12:10,039
hundred kilometers of NGA per day.

244
00:12:10,240 --> 00:12:13,559
Speaker 2: Wow? One hundred kilometers compared to one point five for Atlas.

245
00:12:13,679 --> 00:12:17,799
Speaker 3: Exactly and crucially, Borisov's NGA was erratic. It would surge,

246
00:12:17,840 --> 00:12:20,399
then settle down, then surge again, just like you'd expect

247
00:12:20,399 --> 00:12:23,440
from random jets firing off. So when you put Atlas's

248
00:12:23,480 --> 00:12:26,240
tiny one point five kilometer d deviation next to Borsov's

249
00:12:26,279 --> 00:12:28,799
one hundred plus kilometer a day, you realize Atlas is

250
00:12:28,840 --> 00:12:31,320
moving with something like what seventy to one hundred times

251
00:12:31,399 --> 00:12:34,679
less daily variation. It suggests that whatever gas is being

252
00:12:34,679 --> 00:12:37,840
released by Atlas is either somehow perfectly balanced jets firing

253
00:12:37,879 --> 00:12:41,000
equally in all directions, which seems incredibly unlikely, or it's

254
00:12:41,039 --> 00:12:42,200
being actively counteracted.

255
00:12:42,440 --> 00:12:45,960
Speaker 1: Okay, one hundred times steadier than Borisov. What about a

256
00:12:46,039 --> 00:12:49,080
real giant from our own solar system, something where mass

257
00:12:49,120 --> 00:12:53,039
definitely played a role, like comet Hailbop from the nineties.

258
00:12:53,080 --> 00:12:53,919
Speaker 2: That thing was huge.

259
00:12:54,039 --> 00:12:58,399
Speaker 3: Hailbop was absolutely enormous. What are the largest comets ever observed?

260
00:12:58,600 --> 00:13:01,399
Easily comparable in size to estimates for three I Atlas,

261
00:13:01,799 --> 00:13:05,919
maybe even larger now. If sheer mass alone guaranteed stability

262
00:13:05,960 --> 00:13:08,879
against these gas jets, Hailbob should have been rock steady.

263
00:13:09,120 --> 00:13:11,879
But even that behemoth, a native of our solar system,

264
00:13:12,039 --> 00:13:14,039
was still being pushed around by an average of over

265
00:13:14,120 --> 00:13:15,639
ten kilometers of NGA per.

266
00:13:15,679 --> 00:13:19,200
Speaker 1: Day ten kilometers a day, so still roughly seven times

267
00:13:19,200 --> 00:13:22,720
more variation than Atlas, even though it was comparably massive.

268
00:13:22,360 --> 00:13:25,360
Speaker 3: At least seven maybe ten times more. Yeah, its immense

269
00:13:25,399 --> 00:13:28,720
size simply wasn't enough to completely overcome the random thrust

270
00:13:28,720 --> 00:13:31,200
from its own outcasting. It still wobbled significantly.

271
00:13:31,279 --> 00:13:35,399
Speaker 1: So Hailbop the giant wobbled about ten kilometers a day. Borisov,

272
00:13:35,440 --> 00:13:38,399
the other interstellar visitor, wobbled one hundred kilometers a day.

273
00:13:38,440 --> 00:13:40,960
Atlas wobbles one point five kilometers a day. What about

274
00:13:41,080 --> 00:13:43,759
umor Amoua, the first one? That one was notoriously weird

275
00:13:43,759 --> 00:13:45,000
in its movement too, wasn't it.

276
00:13:45,200 --> 00:13:49,080
Speaker 3: Oh Umohamoua was off the charts, erratic at certain points

277
00:13:49,120 --> 00:13:52,200
in its trajectory. It was changing direction, deviating from its

278
00:13:52,240 --> 00:13:56,120
gravitational path by over one thousand kilometers per day a thousand,

279
00:13:56,159 --> 00:13:59,799
a thousand ye. Its NGA was so extreme, so non

280
00:14:00,080 --> 00:14:03,639
comet like in its pattern, that scientists had to invent

281
00:14:03,879 --> 00:14:06,480
really radical explanations just to try and account for it.

282
00:14:06,799 --> 00:14:09,639
Theories range from it being incredibly thin and light like

283
00:14:09,679 --> 00:14:12,360
a solar sale being pushed by sunlight pressure, which doesn't

284
00:14:12,360 --> 00:14:14,799
fit Atlas at all, to the idea that it was

285
00:14:14,919 --> 00:14:19,200
venting some invisible gas like pure hydrogen trapped deep inside

286
00:14:19,200 --> 00:14:22,120
its structure, which again doesn't seem to fit Atlas's observed

287
00:14:22,120 --> 00:14:22,919
gas composition.

288
00:14:23,440 --> 00:14:26,840
Speaker 1: So the comparison is just stark, isn't it. Boresof tumbled

289
00:14:26,840 --> 00:14:29,480
and jetted like a normal commet hail bop despite its size,

290
00:14:29,519 --> 00:14:31,759
still got pushed around. I'm more must spun wildly out

291
00:14:31,799 --> 00:14:35,159
of control relatively speaking. And then there's Atlas just cruising

292
00:14:35,200 --> 00:14:36,159
like it's on rails.

293
00:14:36,480 --> 00:14:39,840
Speaker 3: The implication of that ultra steady course is, well, it's profound.

294
00:14:40,320 --> 00:14:43,320
If you accept that it is actively releasing gas, and

295
00:14:43,360 --> 00:14:46,320
the tail and composition tell us it is, then those

296
00:14:46,360 --> 00:14:49,639
gas releases should be acting like random thrusters. For the

297
00:14:49,679 --> 00:14:53,159
object to remain so incredibly steady despite those random pushes,

298
00:14:53,600 --> 00:14:57,120
something must be actively compensating for them, canceling them out.

299
00:14:57,799 --> 00:15:01,679
That level of quiet control that's steadiness strongly suggests an

300
00:15:01,720 --> 00:15:05,000
intentional path. It behaves as if it's being actively guided

301
00:15:05,080 --> 00:15:07,600
or steered against the natural forces trying to push it

302
00:15:07,639 --> 00:15:10,639
around that one point five column at a day variation

303
00:15:10,759 --> 00:15:13,440
is so incredibly small it's almost down in the noise

304
00:15:13,559 --> 00:15:17,200
level of our observational accuracy. It implies its path is

305
00:15:17,480 --> 00:15:19,039
statistically speaking.

306
00:15:18,720 --> 00:15:21,759
Speaker 1: Almost perfect, and thinking logically if this were some kind

307
00:15:21,799 --> 00:15:24,799
of guided vessel, that consistency doesn't just show it wants

308
00:15:24,840 --> 00:15:26,960
to stay on its current path. It also implies it

309
00:15:26,960 --> 00:15:30,480
has the capability to control its movement, which theoretically means

310
00:15:30,480 --> 00:15:32,840
it could also change that path if it wanted to write.

311
00:15:33,000 --> 00:15:36,120
Speaker 3: Exactly, and that possibility ties directly into how we might

312
00:15:36,120 --> 00:15:39,879
observe it in the future, or rather our limitations. As

313
00:15:39,919 --> 00:15:43,000
things stand now, its current trajectory is predicted to take

314
00:15:43,039 --> 00:15:45,440
it swinging around the Sun, but on the far side

315
00:15:45,440 --> 00:15:48,399
from Earth. That makes it incredibly difficult for us to

316
00:15:48,399 --> 00:15:51,120
get a really good close up look at its nucleus

317
00:15:51,480 --> 00:15:54,799
to maybe confirm its shape or get even better chemical readings.

318
00:15:55,559 --> 00:15:57,960
The only scenario where we could realistically hope for a

319
00:15:57,960 --> 00:16:00,879
better observation window get the kind of high resolution data

320
00:16:00,879 --> 00:16:04,080
we desperately need is if the object possessed the ability

321
00:16:04,159 --> 00:16:07,840
to say, decelerate slightly as it rounds the Sun to

322
00:16:07,879 --> 00:16:10,399
adjust its trajectory just enough to give us a better view.

323
00:16:11,000 --> 00:16:13,440
The fact that it already exhibits this uncanny level of

324
00:16:13,440 --> 00:16:17,919
control means that possibility, however remote and speculative, is technically

325
00:16:18,000 --> 00:16:21,279
on the table. A random natural comic can't choose its path,

326
00:16:21,919 --> 00:16:23,960
but a silent navigator maybe you can.

327
00:16:24,240 --> 00:16:27,519
Speaker 1: Okay, So now we take everything we've just discussed, this

328
00:16:27,639 --> 00:16:31,240
chemically bizarre, unnervingly steady visitor, and we connect it to

329
00:16:31,279 --> 00:16:34,000
a specific moment in history. This takes us out of

330
00:16:34,039 --> 00:16:36,480
the immediate Solar system dynamics and throws us back in

331
00:16:36,519 --> 00:16:39,360
time to nineteen seventy seven and to one of the

332
00:16:39,360 --> 00:16:43,240
most famous, enduring, and still completely unexplained radio signals ever

333
00:16:43,240 --> 00:16:46,120
picked up from space, the Wow signal.

334
00:16:46,240 --> 00:16:50,159
Speaker 3: Ah, Yes, the Wow signal. It's haunted radio astronomers and

335
00:16:50,159 --> 00:16:53,759
SETI researchers for what nearly five decades now. It was

336
00:16:53,799 --> 00:16:57,039
detected by the Big Yar radio telescope at Ohio State University.

337
00:16:57,440 --> 00:17:00,519
This telescope was specifically designed for SETI, the Search for

338
00:17:00,679 --> 00:17:04,240
Extraterrestrial Intelligence. They were basically scanning the guy's listening for

339
00:17:04,319 --> 00:17:08,359
anything unusual, anything artificial sounding, and on one particular night

340
00:17:08,400 --> 00:17:10,960
in August nineteen seventy seven, the computer print out showed

341
00:17:10,960 --> 00:17:13,799
this incredibly strong narrow band signal. I was so striking,

342
00:17:13,880 --> 00:17:16,960
so unlike natural noise that the astronomer reviewing the data,

343
00:17:17,000 --> 00:17:20,319
a guy named Jerry Emon, just instinctively scribbled wow right

344
00:17:20,319 --> 00:17:22,119
there on the print out next to the data sequence,

345
00:17:22,279 --> 00:17:23,160
and the name stopped.

346
00:17:23,160 --> 00:17:25,799
Speaker 1: And that signal wasn't just strong, right, it had some

347
00:17:25,920 --> 00:17:28,880
very specific characteristics that made it instantly stand out and

348
00:17:28,880 --> 00:17:32,480
pretty much ruled out mundane interference. First, he said it

349
00:17:32,519 --> 00:17:35,119
was narrowband. What does that mean exactly? And why is

350
00:17:35,119 --> 00:17:35,720
it important?

351
00:17:36,039 --> 00:17:39,759
Speaker 3: Narroband means all the signal's energy was concentrated into a

352
00:17:39,880 --> 00:17:42,599
very very tight range of frequencies. Think of it like

353
00:17:42,640 --> 00:17:46,480
a pure musical note instead of just static noise. Natural

354
00:17:46,519 --> 00:17:50,160
cosmic radio sources like pulsars or quasars or gas clouds

355
00:17:50,480 --> 00:17:53,359
tend to emit radiation across a broad range of frequencies.

356
00:17:53,440 --> 00:17:56,400
It's messy. An artifical transmitter, however, can be designed to

357
00:17:56,400 --> 00:18:00,519
broadcast very efficiently on one specific narrow channel. That's a

358
00:18:00,519 --> 00:18:01,559
hallmark of technology.

359
00:18:01,720 --> 00:18:04,359
Speaker 2: Okay, so narraband suggests artificiality. What else?

360
00:18:04,720 --> 00:18:08,759
Speaker 3: Second, the duration it lasted precisely seventy two seconds. Now,

361
00:18:08,799 --> 00:18:11,240
that might sound random, but It's exactly the amount of

362
00:18:11,240 --> 00:18:13,640
time that the bigger telescope, due to the Earth rotation,

363
00:18:14,039 --> 00:18:16,960
could stay pointed at any single spot in the sky

364
00:18:17,279 --> 00:18:19,920
before that spot moved out of its fixed view. So

365
00:18:20,000 --> 00:18:23,000
the signal appeared stayed strong for the full seventy two

366
00:18:23,039 --> 00:18:26,039
seconds the telescope could see it, and then vanished as

367
00:18:26,079 --> 00:18:29,039
the source presumably drifted out of the beam. It didn't

368
00:18:29,039 --> 00:18:31,400
fade in or out, it was just on then.

369
00:18:31,240 --> 00:18:33,799
Speaker 1: Off, and crucially, they tried to find it again right

370
00:18:33,880 --> 00:18:35,119
pointed back at that same.

371
00:18:34,960 --> 00:18:39,799
Speaker 3: Spot repeatedly in the following days, weeks, years, decades. Countless

372
00:18:39,839 --> 00:18:42,079
follow up observations have been made of that same patch

373
00:18:42,079 --> 00:18:45,400
of sky. Ye nothing. The signal has never been detected again.

374
00:18:45,799 --> 00:18:48,759
It wasn't any known Earth based transmission, wasn't of satellite

375
00:18:48,759 --> 00:18:51,240
passing overhead. It definitely didn't match anything from the Sun

376
00:18:51,519 --> 00:18:53,799
or any planets in our Solar system. It was this

377
00:18:53,920 --> 00:18:58,240
incredibly powerful, unique, one off burst of radio energy coming

378
00:18:58,240 --> 00:19:01,039
from deep space, specifically from the general direction of the

379
00:19:01,039 --> 00:19:03,000
constellation Sagittarius.

380
00:19:02,519 --> 00:19:06,160
Speaker 1: And this single event, the seventy two second blip, it

381
00:19:06,200 --> 00:19:09,839
remains just huge in the history of SETI. You mentioned

382
00:19:09,880 --> 00:19:13,559
two critical reasons why it's considered so significant. The first

383
00:19:13,680 --> 00:19:14,920
was the energy required.

384
00:19:15,000 --> 00:19:18,599
Speaker 3: Yeah, the sheer power. To send a focused, narrow band

385
00:19:18,680 --> 00:19:23,000
signal like that strong enough to be detected across potentially

386
00:19:23,039 --> 00:19:27,359
interstellar distances, it would require a clockal amount of energy.

387
00:19:27,839 --> 00:19:31,160
If it was artificial, it implies a civilization far more

388
00:19:31,160 --> 00:19:34,720
advanced than us, maybe one capable of harnessing a significant

389
00:19:34,720 --> 00:19:38,039
fraction of the energy output of its entire star, what

390
00:19:38,079 --> 00:19:42,599
we sometimes call a Type two civilization. That's serious energy management. Alternatively,

391
00:19:42,640 --> 00:19:44,759
if it was some unknown natural phenomenon, it would have

392
00:19:44,759 --> 00:19:47,920
to be some incredibly intense, rare type of stellar flare

393
00:19:48,039 --> 00:19:50,759
or burst activity that we simply never observed before or since.

394
00:19:51,079 --> 00:19:54,119
Either explanation makes it profoundly interesting and deeply mysterious.

395
00:19:54,200 --> 00:19:56,880
Speaker 1: Okay, so huge power involved. But the second reason, maybe

396
00:19:56,960 --> 00:19:59,319
even more compelling for the SETI folks, was the frequency

397
00:19:59,319 --> 00:20:02,640
it was broadcast. It was exactly fourteen twenty megahoth Yes.

398
00:20:02,519 --> 00:20:05,920
Speaker 3: Fourteen hundred twenty megahertz, and that frequency is special. Why

399
00:20:06,200 --> 00:20:09,720
because hydrogen. Hydrogen is by an enormous margin, the most

400
00:20:09,799 --> 00:20:13,799
abundant element in the entire universe, and hydrogen atoms just

401
00:20:13,920 --> 00:20:17,839
naturally due to their atomic structure, emit faint radio waves

402
00:20:18,119 --> 00:20:21,319
at precisely fourteen hundred twenty megahertz. This is known as

403
00:20:21,359 --> 00:20:24,240
the hydrogen line or the twenty one centimeter line. It's

404
00:20:24,279 --> 00:20:27,759
a fundamental constant of physics. Any civilization anywhere in the

405
00:20:27,839 --> 00:20:31,799
universe that develops even basic radio astronomy will inevitably discover

406
00:20:31,920 --> 00:20:34,119
this hydrogen line. It's a universal benchmark.

407
00:20:34,200 --> 00:20:36,640
Speaker 1: So the thinking goes, if you're an advanced civilization trying

408
00:20:36,640 --> 00:20:39,880
to send a deliberate signal hello, we're here message across

409
00:20:39,880 --> 00:20:42,839
the cosmos, you wouldn't send it on some random frequency.

410
00:20:42,880 --> 00:20:44,920
You'd pick the one frequency that you can be almost

411
00:20:44,920 --> 00:20:47,720
certain any other technological species would also know and likely

412
00:20:47,720 --> 00:20:50,799
be listening on. It's like the universe's designated channel for

413
00:20:50,839 --> 00:20:53,720
interstellar communication, the ultimate Hello exactly.

414
00:20:53,720 --> 00:20:56,359
Speaker 3: It's like writing a postcard in the language of fundamental physics.

415
00:20:56,440 --> 00:20:58,200
If you want to maximize the chance of your signal

416
00:20:58,200 --> 00:21:01,240
being recognized as intentional and artificial, you broadcast it right

417
00:21:01,319 --> 00:21:04,759
there at fourteen hundred and twenty melohertz, the hydrogen line.

418
00:21:04,920 --> 00:21:07,400
It's the cosmic water cooler, the universal meeting place in

419
00:21:07,440 --> 00:21:10,599
the radio spectrum, and the wow signal hit it perfectly.

420
00:21:10,960 --> 00:21:14,920
That combination narrow band, powerful transient, and right on the

421
00:21:15,000 --> 00:21:17,839
hydrogen line is why it remains the single best candidate,

422
00:21:17,880 --> 00:21:21,680
however ambiguous, for a genuine extraterrestrial signal ever detected.

423
00:21:21,960 --> 00:21:25,400
Speaker 1: Okay, so now we bring these two giant mysteries together.

424
00:21:25,720 --> 00:21:30,359
We have three iyeatlists, today's chemically impossible, perfectly navigated interstellar visitor,

425
00:21:30,799 --> 00:21:34,400
and we have the WOW signal, that powerful enigmatic hydrogen

426
00:21:34,440 --> 00:21:36,119
line greed in from nineteen seventy seven.

427
00:21:36,359 --> 00:21:40,839
Speaker 3: And here's the connection. And it is genuinely staggering. Astronomers

428
00:21:40,920 --> 00:21:44,000
tracking three eyeat lists, trying to understand its origins, have

429
00:21:44,160 --> 00:21:48,279
managed to calculate its trajectory backward in time, tracing its

430
00:21:48,319 --> 00:21:50,640
path through our solar system and out into the galaxy

431
00:21:50,880 --> 00:21:54,599
for potentially thousands, maybe millions of years. And the startling

432
00:21:54,640 --> 00:21:57,119
result of that calculation is that three eyeatts appears to

433
00:21:57,119 --> 00:21:59,359
have originated from the same general direction on the sky,

434
00:22:00,079 --> 00:22:03,559
the constellation Sagittarius, the exact same region where the Big

435
00:22:03,640 --> 00:22:07,400
Yer telescope detected the WIW signal nearly fifty years ago.

436
00:22:07,559 --> 00:22:12,640
Speaker 1: That, okay, that alignment, both in space originating from Sagittarius

437
00:22:12,839 --> 00:22:16,200
and potentially in time, the signal arriving just as the

438
00:22:16,240 --> 00:22:17,640
object might have been entering the system.

439
00:22:17,640 --> 00:22:18,799
Speaker 2: That is just Wow.

440
00:22:18,880 --> 00:22:21,720
Speaker 1: This correlation, this apparent link, has inevitably led to this

441
00:22:21,759 --> 00:22:24,960
incredibly provocative theory. It's still unproven, may be unprovable, But

442
00:22:25,000 --> 00:22:27,400
the idea is, what if the WOW signal wasn't sent

443
00:22:27,440 --> 00:22:29,759
from some distant star system hundreds or thousands of light

444
00:22:29,839 --> 00:22:32,319
years away in Sabatarius. What if what if it was

445
00:22:32,319 --> 00:22:35,119
actually transmitted by our current visitor Threeiilis as it was

446
00:22:35,160 --> 00:22:37,920
making its final approach into our solar system back in

447
00:22:37,960 --> 00:22:38,799
the late seventies.

448
00:22:39,319 --> 00:22:42,400
Speaker 3: We can actually map the timeline quite precisely based on

449
00:22:42,480 --> 00:22:45,839
its current speed in trajectory. Back in August nineteen seventy seven,

450
00:22:45,880 --> 00:22:49,640
when the WOW signal was detected, three i Atlas would

451
00:22:49,640 --> 00:22:51,400
have been located right around the outer edge of our

452
00:22:51,400 --> 00:22:54,720
solar system, somewhere out beyond the orbit of Neptune and Pluto,

453
00:22:55,160 --> 00:22:58,680
just crossing that threshold into our son's gravitational sehere of influence.

454
00:22:59,279 --> 00:23:02,279
So just the signal wasn't just some random broadcasts from

455
00:23:02,359 --> 00:23:04,680
deep space. Maybe it was a target. It heads up

456
00:23:05,200 --> 00:23:09,000
a deliberate seventy two second burst of energy transmitted on

457
00:23:09,039 --> 00:23:12,880
the universally recognized hydrogen line frequency time perfectly for when

458
00:23:12,920 --> 00:23:15,680
the object was essentially knocking on our solar systems front door.

459
00:23:15,880 --> 00:23:20,279
Speaker 1: A single powerful narrow band transmission sent on the hydrogen

460
00:23:20,319 --> 00:23:22,880
line originating from the exact same patch of sky as

461
00:23:22,880 --> 00:23:27,039
our most anomalous interstellar object. It really reframes the whole thing,

462
00:23:27,079 --> 00:23:30,039
doesn't it. It implies not just an intentionally controlled trajectory

463
00:23:30,079 --> 00:23:32,720
for Atlas, but maybe even an intention to announce its

464
00:23:32,799 --> 00:23:35,200
arrival decades before it got close enough for us to

465
00:23:35,240 --> 00:23:35,960
spot visually.

466
00:23:36,279 --> 00:23:39,960
Speaker 3: It does now Again, we absolutely have to maintain scientific

467
00:23:40,000 --> 00:23:43,200
caution here. This is a theory, a hypothesis base on

468
00:23:43,240 --> 00:23:45,880
a correlation. It hasn't been proven, and it might never

469
00:23:45,920 --> 00:23:49,759
be possible to prove it definitively. But the sheer unlikelihood

470
00:23:49,759 --> 00:23:52,279
of two of the most significant anomalies in modern astronomy,

471
00:23:52,319 --> 00:23:56,200
the unexplained WOW signal and the uniquely behaved three eye

472
00:23:56,240 --> 00:23:59,200
Atlas originating from the same small area of space by

473
00:23:59,279 --> 00:24:03,200
pure chance, well, it's extremely low. It's a coincidence that's

474
00:24:03,279 --> 00:24:07,200
almost impossible to just ignore. It forces us, compels us

475
00:24:07,240 --> 00:24:11,200
really to ask, could there be a single advanced, coordinated

476
00:24:11,240 --> 00:24:15,440
explanation that ties together the impossible chemistry, the perfect navigational control,

477
00:24:15,759 --> 00:24:19,000
and the historic radio signal, all emanating from the same entity,

478
00:24:19,039 --> 00:24:21,960
the same visitor. The possibility is mind bending.

479
00:24:22,039 --> 00:24:23,759
Speaker 1: Okay, let's just try and wrap our heads around this.

480
00:24:23,880 --> 00:24:26,960
Let's synthesize these three core paradoxes. We started with the

481
00:24:27,000 --> 00:24:30,200
chemistry three i at lists glowing bright green but missing

482
00:24:30,279 --> 00:24:32,880
the C two molecules it needs. Instead, it's full of

483
00:24:32,920 --> 00:24:36,160
CO two and bizarrely venting nickel vapor far too early,

484
00:24:36,359 --> 00:24:38,680
a profile that well happens to look a lot like

485
00:24:38,799 --> 00:24:39,519
rocket exhaust.

486
00:24:39,559 --> 00:24:43,279
Speaker 3: Then we looked at its movement utterly, unnervingly steady. It

487
00:24:43,359 --> 00:24:48,119
shows almost no non gravitational acceleration, suggesting some kind of

488
00:24:48,160 --> 00:24:50,680
active control is canceling out the natural push from its

489
00:24:50,680 --> 00:24:53,960
own gas jets forces that easily tossed around much larger

490
00:24:54,000 --> 00:24:57,519
comments like Hailbob or sent Borisoft wobbling or made um

491
00:24:57,519 --> 00:24:58,640
amoua vier wildly.

492
00:24:59,039 --> 00:25:01,839
Speaker 1: And finally we overl that with a historical context, the

493
00:25:01,920 --> 00:25:05,400
jaw dropping realization that this object's calculated origin point in

494
00:25:05,440 --> 00:25:08,440
the sky lines up perfectly with the source direction of

495
00:25:08,440 --> 00:25:12,160
the mysterious WIW signal from nineteen seventy seven. Taken together,

496
00:25:12,279 --> 00:25:15,839
this visitor doesn't feel like just passive random interstillar debris.

497
00:25:15,920 --> 00:25:20,400
Its characteristics consistently point towards something different, something perhaps controlled, intentional,

498
00:25:20,480 --> 00:25:21,599
maybe even communicative.

499
00:25:21,920 --> 00:25:24,160
Speaker 3: So what does this all mean for us? Where does

500
00:25:24,160 --> 00:25:26,200
it leave us? I think the core lesson here. The

501
00:25:26,200 --> 00:25:28,839
big takeaway is really about pushing the boundaries of what

502
00:25:28,880 --> 00:25:32,680
we consider natural When all our standard explanations for how

503
00:25:32,680 --> 00:25:36,480
commet should behave simple thermal heating, sublimation random gas jets,

504
00:25:36,680 --> 00:25:39,880
When they fail so completely on three distinct fronts like this,

505
00:25:40,720 --> 00:25:43,759
than we are i'd say, professionally obligated as scientists and

506
00:25:43,799 --> 00:25:47,400
thinkers to broaden our perspective. We have to consider possibilities

507
00:25:47,400 --> 00:25:50,880
outside the standard model, whether three I outlests ultimately turns

508
00:25:50,880 --> 00:25:53,960
out to be some incredibly exotic, previously unknown class of

509
00:25:54,039 --> 00:25:57,759
natural object with physics we don't yet grasp, or something else.

510
00:25:58,079 --> 00:26:00,960
Its very existence is a wake up call. It forces

511
00:26:01,039 --> 00:26:03,039
us to keep an open mind and constantly re evaluate

512
00:26:03,079 --> 00:26:05,240
the limits of what an interstellar object can be and.

513
00:26:05,200 --> 00:26:07,480
Speaker 2: Can't do, and maybe think about the implications too.

514
00:26:07,680 --> 00:26:10,640
Speaker 1: If an object that originated light years away from another

515
00:26:10,680 --> 00:26:15,160
star system entirely can demonstrably navigate the chaotic gravitational field

516
00:26:15,200 --> 00:26:18,720
of our solar system with such precision, If it can

517
00:26:18,759 --> 00:26:22,920
resist the thermal forces, the solar radiation, the random outgassing

518
00:26:22,920 --> 00:26:26,000
that through even giant native commets like Hailbop off course,

519
00:26:26,640 --> 00:26:29,960
what does that suggest about the actual feasibility, the reality

520
00:26:30,079 --> 00:26:33,319
of interstellar travel. It feels like the universe just delivered

521
00:26:33,319 --> 00:26:36,319
this profound mystery right to our doorstep one that demands

522
00:26:36,359 --> 00:26:40,240
we seriously contemplate concepts like control, intention, and perhaps even

523
00:26:40,279 --> 00:26:43,880
engineering on a scale far beyond our current dreams. And

524
00:26:43,920 --> 00:26:48,200
it leaves you wondering what other silent navigators maintaining such steady, perfect,

525
00:26:48,279 --> 00:26:51,119
maybe even purposeful courses might already be out there, perhaps

526
00:26:51,160 --> 00:26:53,359
closer than we think, Or maybe are we on their

527
00:26:53,400 --> 00:26:53,599
way

