Originally Posted By Kagetora:
Quick "back to reality" question, as I haven't been following it lately (52+hour work week):

Despite the "jets," has it slowed down or changed course in any significant manner? Or is it still on course to streak through our system at 130,000mph, in the same trajectory as it entered?

Originally Posted By Cypher214:
I haven't seen anything claiming a change in trajectory or speed.  The latest chatter is about the lack of images or info coming from JPL after the Mars orbiters took their pics.  The shutdown isn't a valid excuse.

What if an interstellar visitor arrived not to observe, but to prepare? Tonight we trace the chemical fingerprint of 3I/Atlas as it swept past Mars, leaving behind a payload that defies conventional explanation. The evidence emerges not from conspiracy but from peer-reviewed observations: nickel without iron, cyanide in exponential bloom, water streaming like an open tap where silence should reign. These aren't accusations—they are measurements, documented by observatories across three continents, compiled by scientists who publish their confusion in careful academic language.
The timing alone invites questions that linger in the spaces between data points. An object seven billion years old passes within surgical precision of Mars, spraying the exact molecular recipe for metalloproteins—those hybrid structures where biology and technology blur into indistinguishable function. Fourteen months later, machines designed to dig and build will land on soil chemically altered by materials from another star system. Not metaphorically altered. Measurably. Detectably. Waiting.

This isn't speculation dressed as science. It's science that reads like speculation. The carbonyl process happening naturally on a comet. The plasma trail carrying information encoded in electromagnetic structure. The close approach probability of point two percent. Each anomaly offers a natural explanation, yet the pattern refuses to resolve into comfortable randomness. What emerges instead is a what-if scenario grounded entirely in documented chemistry and orbital mechanics—a thought experiment that uses only the tools science provides but arrives at conclusions science hesitates to speak aloud.
As we drift through this convergence of interstellar delivery and human exploration, we ask not what we believe, but what the data permits us to consider. When does precision become intention? When does chemistry become seeding? Tonight's exploration moves through the evidence without demanding answers, tracing instead the boundary where natural process and deliberate design become difficult to distinguish. This is science for those who find wonder in molecular catalysis, who see poetry in trajectory calculations, who understand that the most profound mysteries often arrive wrapped in the language of peer review. If you drift easily into questions that astronomy asks but cannot yet answer, join this gentle voyage through chemical possibility and cosmic timing.

Originally Posted By anothermisanthrope:
2 hour listen - great for background noise.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqri-tTmoDE

Originally Posted By macman37:
[tweet]https://x.com/1000waystoair/status/1980190477396963375?s=57[/tweet]

Is the twitter function broken…? Here it is as a regular old link.

This little clip is making its way around the X-verse right now… 🤔

Originally Posted By tnriverluver:
Hmmm what is going on here?  I like how Christina gets accurate info.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiA383_DYco

INTERSTELLAR COMET ATLAS *IS* VISIBLE FROM EARTH: Supposedly, Comet 3I/ATLAS cannot be seen from Earth as it passes behind the sun this month. However, Thai amateur astronomer Worachate Boonplod realized that it is visible, after all. Boonplod found it in daily images from NOAA's CCOR-1 coronagraph. The Earth-orbiting instrument will be able to track the comet and monitor its brightness as it approaches perihelion.

Originally Posted By tnriverluver:
Hmmm what is going on here?  I like how Christina gets accurate info.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiA383_DYco

Originally Posted By Kagetora:

You're not wrong. Matter-Antimatter reactions are 100% efficient. It's...kind of the point.

That said, an antimatter comet plowing through a matter solar system would create some interesting and "abnormal" results, until it was figured out. Oversized coma as it rammed into the solar wind, odd color, odd elements in said coma, etc.

OTOH, now we're getting into the profound problems in physics, such as why the entire Universe didn't annihilate itself in a 50/50 matter/antimatter reaction immediately after it came into being, and, well...a bunch of shit after that.

Originally Posted By Cypher214:
Keep in mind, those are likely taken with a long exposure so you're seeing the comet in motion.  It's most likely not a big cylinder.

Originally Posted By Finslayer83:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xxus9MdgjIg

Sample images showing the morphological development of 3I/ATLAS. The image dates and heliocentric distances of the comet are shown in each panel, as is a 10   scale bar. Sunward is West. The location of the brightest pixel is marked with a red dot, showing that the dust is extended asymmetrically towards the West in the early data, reversing to the East as the radiation pressure swept tail develops in the later data.

Originally Posted By Sixgun357:
How likely is this to be an Alien ship loaded with robot Alien shock troopers?

And would M855 be a good ammo to start packing P-Mags with in preparation?

Originally Posted By Cypher214:
The percentage is somewhere between 0 and 100, give or take.  Better start loading PMags.

One documentary suggests having a water gun handy so don't forget that.  You'd hate to be loaded down with ammo and end up fighting them off with your Camelbak hose.

Originally Posted By tnriverluver:
100,000 rounds or so stockpiled for 25+ years for human type war and turns out they might all be useless.  Guess I need to start hitting the range and at least start blasting them for enjoyment after not even visiting the range I belong to since 2020.  I don't even know 100% positive my phone will open the new electronic lock that was recently installed.

This week the internet is buzzing with headlines like "Mysterious Object Is Up to No Good While It's Hidden Behind the Sun." They're referring to interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS. Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb and others have suggested it might be a spaceship deliberately hiding from humans. There's just one problem with this argument: We can still see it from Earth.

For example, the CCOR-1 coronagraph onboard NOAA's GOES-19 satellite is tracking the comet and monitoring its brightness. So is NASA's quartet of PUNCH spacecraft, and coronagraphs onboard the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO, not far from Earth). Comet 3I/ATLAS is under constant surveillance.

"Unless 3I/ATLAS fades substantially in the next couple of days, we should be able to keep eyeballs on it right through its perihelion (closest approach to the sun)," says coronagraph expert Karl Battams.

Tracking the comet is not easy because it is so faint. However, Battams says it can be done: "Objects at the threshold of detection like 3I/ATLAS are a challenge for coronagraphs. We often have to employ image stacking techniques. For this to work, we have to have a very precise understanding of the pointing and distortion of the telescopes so that we can find the exact pixels that correspond to the comet. It gets fiddly, but we make it work."

If 3I/ATLAS changes direction or surges in brightness, we will know. So far, it's acting just like a comet. T. Marshall Eubanks from Space Initiatives Inc assembled this light curve, including recent data from CCOR-1, SOHO, and PUNCH.

These data confirm that 3I/ATLAS is following a fairly standard model of comet brightness with contributions from gas and dust. If this is a spacecraft, it is wearing an uncanny disguise.

In December, 3I/ATLAS will emerge from the glare of the sun. Regular telescopes on Earth's surface can then rejoin the monitoring effort. Our bet: They will see a comet, not a spaceship. Stay tuned.

Originally Posted By Cypher214:
The percentage is somewhere between 0 and 100, give or take.  Better start loading PMags.

One documentary suggests having a water gun handy so don't forget that.  You'd hate to be loaded down with ammo and end up fighting them off with your Camelbak hose.

Originally Posted By SIMJEDI:
Avi Loeb on the Joe Rogan show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaAun27gftk

Originally Posted By macman37:


Any revelations …?

Originally Posted By tnriverluver:
I would think by now we would have heard if it did anything strange.  That could be a good sign or it also could be a very bad sign since the silence is deafening.

Originally Posted By castlebravo84:


Maybe not on our planet or in our solar system, but this thing is from outside our solar system, and it is only the third interstellar body we have been able to observe this closely, so we really have no clue what is and isn't "normal" for something like this.

Spacecraft monitoring the sun witnessed a dramatic surge in the brightness of Comet 3I/ATLAS as it plunged toward its Oct. 29th perihelion. Qicheng Zhang (Lowell Observatory) and Karl Battams (U.S. Naval Research Laboratory) reported the phenomenon in a preprint submitted to the Astrophysical Journal Letters on Oct. 28th.

"The reason for 3I’s rapid brightening, which far exceeds the brightening rate of most Oort cloud comets, remains unclear," the authors say.

While Earth-based telescopes lost sight of the comet during its close approach to the sun, coronagraphs on spacecraft like STEREO-A, SOHO, and NOAA’s GOES-19 satellite never stopped watching. The composite image, above, shows how the comet looked to these instruments.

NOAA’s CCOR-1 coronagraph did the best job resolving the comet, showing a 4-arcminute-wide coma (atmosphere), while SOHO's C3 coronagraph collected the best color data, revealing the comet to be bluer than the sun. The blue color hints that glowing gas, not dust, now dominates its brightness.

Zhang and Battams analyzed coronagraph data from September and October. They found that 3I/ATLAS has been increasing in brightness as the 7.5th power of decreasing distance from the sun--twice as fast as it was brightening earlier this year. This might be caused by a surge in water sublimating from the comet's core, they speculated in the paper.

"Our cursory analysis of this data indicates the comet will likely emerge from solar conjunction considerably brighter than when it entered," they say.

This bodes well for the future. Europe's JUICE spacecraft will encounter the comet for a closer look starting Nov. 2nd. Its instruments will benefit from the increased brightness. Moreover, telescopes on Earth will regain the ability to image 3I/ATLAS in late November and December when the interstellar object fully emerges from the glare of the sun.

What will they see? Stay tuned for updates!

RAPID BRIGHTENING OF COMET 3I/ATLAS:

Spacecraft monitoring the sun witnessed a dramatic surge in the brightness of Comet 3I/ATLAS as it plunged toward its Oct. 29th perihelion. Qicheng Zhang (Lowell Observatory) and Karl Battams (U.S. Naval Research Laboratory) reported the phenomenon in a preprint submitted to the Astrophysical Journal Letters on Oct. 28th.

"The reason for 3I's rapid brightening, which far exceeds the brightening rate of most Oort cloud comets, remains unclear," the authors say.

While Earth-based telescopes lost sight of the comet during its close approach to the sun, coronagraphs on spacecraft like STEREO-A, SOHO, and NOAA's GOES-19 satellite never stopped watching. The composite image, above, shows how the comet looked to these instruments.

NOAA's CCOR-1 coronagraph did the best job resolving the comet, showing a 4-arcminute-wide coma (atmosphere), while SOHO's C3 coronagraph collected the best color data, revealing the comet to be bluer than the sun. The blue color hints that glowing gas, not dust, now dominates its brightness.

Zhang and Battams analyzed coronagraph data from September and October. They found that 3I/ATLAS has been increasing in brightness as the 7.5th power of decreasing distance from the sun--twice as fast as it was brightening earlier this year. This might be caused by a surge in water sublimating from the comet's core, they speculated in the paper.

"Our cursory analysis of this data indicates the comet will likely emerge from solar conjunction considerably brighter than when it entered," they say.

This bodes well for the future. Europe's JUICE spacecraft will encounter the comet for a closer look starting Nov. 2nd. Its instruments will benefit from the increased brightness. Moreover, telescopes on Earth will regain the ability to image 3I/ATLAS in late November and December when the interstellar object fully emerges from the glare of the sun.

What will they see? Stay tuned for updates!

Originally Posted By SIMJEDI:
Avi Loeb on the Joe Rogan show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaAun27gftk

The non-gravitational acceleration was measured at the perihelion distance of 1.36 times the Earth-Sun separation (defined as an astronomical unit or `au’), equivalent to 203 million kilometers. It had two components in the orbital plane of 3I/ATLAS:
· A radial acceleration away from the Sun of 135 kilometers (=9x10^{-7}au) per day squared.
· A transverse acceleration relative to the Sun’s direction of 60 kilometers (=4x10^{-7}au) per day squared.
If 3I/ATLAS is propelled by the rocket effect of ejected gas, then momentum conservation implies that the object would lose half its mass over a characteristic timescale equal to the ejection speed divided by the measured non-gravitational acceleration. For a thermal ejection speed of a few hundred meters per second, the evaporation half-life of 3I/ATLAS is 6 months. This implies that over the month it takes 3I/ATLAS to cross a spatial scale of order its perihelion separation from the Sun, 3I/ATLAS would lose about a tenth of its mass. Such a massive mass loss should be detectable in the form of a large plume of gas surrounding 3I/ATLAS during the upcoming months of November and December 2025.

Originally Posted By tnriverluver:
Spoiler not headed towards earth.  At least not yet!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=favWG-v1tTE