Latest / THE DAILY BRIEF / 3IATLAS shows signs of non-gravitational acceleration

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3IATLAS shows signs of non-gravitational acceleration · THE DAILY BRIEF

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  Speaker 1: And finally to night in the future of everything.
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  Speaker 2: I don't know about you, but I spent the weekend
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  Speaker 2: refreshing for updates on our favorite interstellar visitor, that comet
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  Speaker 2: or question mark three.
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  Speaker 3: I at list. It is up to a little bit
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  Speaker 3: more strangeness.
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  Speaker 2: Now, last week we told you that three i at
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  Speaker 2: lists was getting way brighter, way.
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  Speaker 3: Bluer as it got close to the Sun.
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  Speaker 2: Well, now there is a new report from NASA that
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  Speaker 2: shows that three iye at lists might be picking up
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  Speaker 2: a little speed and quote non gravitational acceleration.
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  Speaker 3: But what does that mean.
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  Speaker 2: Well, basically, it means it's being propelled by some other
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  Speaker 2: force besides gravity. Maybe it's thrust from burning off of
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  Speaker 2: chemical compounds as it gotten near the Sun, which happens occasionally.
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  Speaker 2: It would be natural for comets that usually burn off
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  Speaker 2: some of those chemicals, and that's what you see in
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  Speaker 2: that big cloud afterwards, and we would see a very
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  Speaker 2: big cloud around it once we get a very good
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  Speaker 2: visual soon, but we haven't yet.
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  Speaker 1: In the meantime, the.
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  Speaker 2: Hype is in overdrive, with headlines jumping straight to conclusions
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  Speaker 2: alien ship uses engine.
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  Speaker 3: I mean not.
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  Speaker 2: There yet, But before we jump to any of those conclusions.
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  Speaker 2: Let's go straight to the stores on everything interstellar travel.
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  Speaker 2: That is Harvard's professor Avi Low back again to help
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  Speaker 2: us break some of this down. Professor, always great to
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  Speaker 2: see you. So you're hinting at a little bit of
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  Speaker 2: this the last time we talked now non gravitational acceleration, like,
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  Speaker 2: how much acceleration are we talking here?
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  Speaker 1: Well, thanks for having me.
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  Speaker 4: It was data from the Alma Observatory, which is a
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  Speaker 4: millimeter wave set of sensors that presumably detected the three
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  Speaker 4: Atlas as it approached perihelium closest approach to the Sun.
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  Speaker 4: And what it discovered is a deviation by four arc
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  Speaker 4: seconds in right ascension from the expected path. And that's
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  Speaker 4: very significant, statistically significant. I calculated given the level of
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  Speaker 4: acceleration that they inferred that was reported on the Jet
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  Speaker 4: Propulsion Lab website for three I atlas is that corresponds
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  Speaker 4: to evaporation of about the sixth of the mass of
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  Speaker 4: the object to give it that kind of a boost
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  Speaker 4: as a result of recoil. It's a very significant fraction
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  Speaker 4: of the mass of the object. And I calculated it
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  Speaker 4: based on momentum conservation. The material flowing in a way
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  Speaker 4: from the object in one direction gives it a kick
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  Speaker 4: in the opposite direction.
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  Speaker 1: There is no.
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  Speaker 4: Way out of that, and under relatively conservative assumptions about
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  Speaker 4: the escape speed of the molecules or dust particles from
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  Speaker 4: the object, one gets that a substantial fraction of the
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  Speaker 4: mass of the object had to be evaporated. So that
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  Speaker 4: means that if it's a comet, a natural comet, it
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  Speaker 4: should be sund by a cloud of gas that carries
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  Speaker 4: five billion tons or more, and the object itself was
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  Speaker 4: losing a significant fraction of its mass. So that means
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  Speaker 4: when we look at the three A at last, after
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  Speaker 4: it goes out of hiding behind the sun, and that
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  Speaker 4: should happen within a week or two.
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  Speaker 1: If it's a natural comment.
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  Speaker 4: We should really see a very bright, massive cloud of
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  Speaker 4: gas and perhaps even a cometary tale that is extremely
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  Speaker 4: bright around it. If we don't see that, the question
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  Speaker 4: is what propelled it, and there is no way out
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  Speaker 4: one way or another, we should figure out the nature
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  Speaker 4: of the object if it evaporated. If twenty percent or
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  Speaker 4: so of the mass of the object got evaporated by sunlight,
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  Speaker 4: then we will know its nature because that's a substantial portion.
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  Speaker 1: Of the mass that the object was made.
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  Speaker 4: Of to start with, and we can figure out what
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  Speaker 4: the composition that material has, as.
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  Speaker 2: Twenty percent is such a large number, and yet, you know,
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  Speaker 2: it makes me think of the last time we saw
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  Speaker 2: something like this and Moua mooa, which you studied so closely,
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  Speaker 2: we didn't see that type of cloud around it. That
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  Speaker 2: was another interstellar visitor. What else could be going on here?
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  Speaker 4: So in the case of a Muhama, it occurred to
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  Speaker 4: me that it could be the sunlight reflecting bouncing off
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  Speaker 4: its surface that could push it. And in fact, three
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  Speaker 4: years later, there was actually another object discovered by the
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  Speaker 4: same telescope in Hawaii. It was given the name twenty
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  Speaker 4: twenty s O, discovered in September twenty twenty, and that
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  Speaker 4: one ended up being recognized as a rocket booster from
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  Speaker 4: a launch in nineteen sixty six by NASA because we
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  Speaker 4: were able to infer the composition of the surface of
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  Speaker 4: this object, which was stainless steel, using an infrared spectrograph,
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  Speaker 4: so it was clear that one was artificial. It was
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  Speaker 4: pushed by reflecting sunlight because it was hollow, and so
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  Speaker 4: that led me to suggest that maybe Amoma was also artificial.
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  Speaker 1: In this case, we do.
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  Speaker 4: Detect gas around it even when we found it, even
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  Speaker 4: when it was far from the sun. The question is
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  Speaker 4: is there much more gas now? And it's possible because
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  Speaker 4: it got brighter. If we don't see that a very
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  Speaker 4: massive amount of mass of gas around it, then you
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  Speaker 4: know there might be.
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  Speaker 1: Something else propelling it.
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  Speaker 4: You know. Spacecraft obviously can in principle have an engine
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  Speaker 4: that will not produce such a massive cloud of gas.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, or like you said, I mean even a large
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  Speaker 2: stainless steel or stainless nickel, you know shape that.
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  Speaker 3: Is being pushed by this. All of it is wild.
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  Speaker 2: And yet the most press trading part, when are we
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  Speaker 2: going to see images? What's the latest with your quest
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  Speaker 2: to try to get some of the images released that
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  Speaker 2: NASA already has it may not be public because of
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  Speaker 2: the government shutdown. And when are we going to see
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  Speaker 2: land based like earth based observations?
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  Speaker 3: Because I know that's right around the corner, right.
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  Speaker 4: Right. The high rise camera on board the Mass Reconnaissance
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  Speaker 4: orbiter took images of three atlas.
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  Speaker 1: When it came closest to Mars. That was the.
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  Speaker 4: Second and the third of October, more than a month ago,
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  Speaker 4: and I tried to reach out to the principal investigator
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  Speaker 4: of that camera. I didn't get a response, and I
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  Speaker 4: corresponded with Representative Anna Paulina Luna, who brilliantly decided to
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  Speaker 4: send a letter to the Acting Administrator of NASA, Sean Duffy,
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  Speaker 4: and she sent it on the October thirty first.
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  Speaker 1: We haven't heard back from him.
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  Speaker 4: However, he immediately responded to a tweet from Kim Kardashian
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  Speaker 4: who asked, what is the tea about three iAtlas?
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  Speaker 1: And he responded to her.
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  Speaker 4: And my complaint is that in terms of priorities, he
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  Speaker 4: should respond quicker to a letter from Congress or to
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  Speaker 4: a scientist who really wants to analyze that data.
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  Speaker 1: And unfortunately we didn't hear back.
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  Speaker 4: So as of now, the claim is that this is
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  Speaker 4: a result of government shutdown. I think it's inappropriate to
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  Speaker 4: withhold the scientific information from the community because we are
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  Speaker 4: planning future observations based on what we know about three atlas.
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  Speaker 2: Now, we will continue to push for answers, hopefully Kim
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  Speaker 2: Kardashian will continue to push for answers, and hopefully you'll
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  Speaker 2: get your answers sometimes soon.
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  Speaker 3: Professor Arobi Lobe, thank you so very much.
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  Speaker 1: We thank you for watching and remember.
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