If you’ve been following the hubbub about 3I/ATLAS, you’re probably either in the camp that thinks it’s just a comet from ridiculously far away that’s managed to find its way into our solar system, or you’re preparing for an alien invasion. (Lukewarm take: it’s just a fast moving comet.) But that doesn’t stop it from being interesting – its relatively fast speed and odd trajectory make astronomers wonder where it’s coming from, and give us clues about how old it is likely to be.
Astronomy is the odd-man-out in the natural sciences. In most branches of physics, chemistry, and even biology, you can run experiments. Even those non-experimental corners of the above fields, like botany, for instance, you can get your hands on the objects you’re talking about. Not so astronomy. When I was studying in college, one of my professors quipped that astronomers were pretty happy when they could hammer down a value within an order of magnitude, and ecstatic when they could get a factor of two or three. The deck is simply stacked against them.
With that background, I love two recent papers about 3I/ATLAS. The first tries to figure out why it’s moving so fast by figuring out if it’s been going that fast since its sun kicked it out, or if it has picked up a gravitational boost along the way. While they can’t go all the way back in time, they’ve worked out whether it has flown by anything close enough to get a significant boost over the last 10 million years. This is impressive that we can calculate the trajectory so far back, but at the same time, 10 million years is peanuts on the cosmic timescale.
According to another paper, there is a weak relationship between interstellar objects’ age and their velocity, with faster-moving rocks being older, they can estimate the age of 3I/ATLAS at between 7.6 and 14 billion years old, assuming no gravitational boosts along the way. While an age range of 7 billion years may seem like a lot, that’s only a factor of two. A winner for astronomy!
Snarkiness aside, its old age does make a testable prediction, namely that it should be relatively full of water ice. So as 3I/ATLAS comes closer to the sun in the next few weeks, we’ll either see it spitting off lots of water vapor, and the age prediction checks out, or we won’t, and they’ll need to figure out why.
Whatever happens, I appreciate how astronomers aren’t afraid to outline what they can’t know – orbital dynamics further back than a certain date, or the precise age of rocks based solely on their velocity. Most have also been cautious about calling the comet a spaceship. On the other hand, if it is, one thing’s for sure: after a longer-than-10-million-year road trip, whoever is on board that thing is going to be hungry.
Not sure about little Green Men, but there sure is a lot of little green click-bait on the net about all three comets in sight right now. Makes for a good distraction ahead of the next manufactured world changing event.
The things you here on the talk radio scene by People who should know better (Harvard Yah you) proves you cannot trust anything you hear on major name talk radio shows.
GIGO
…………………………………………
Comets are fascinating and amazing, I’m happy some things still are :-)
100% with you on that….
Had astronomy back in college in the mid 70s really enjoyed it.
An age of 7.6 to 14 billion years old is kind of a cheater’s way to get a factor of two, since the latter is the age of the universe itself. :)
It seems that almost (?) all of the fooferall about this object emanates from Avi Loeb, a well credentialed well published astro nomer or physicist who unfortunately seems to have gone crazy about the topic of extra-solar objects. His goto explanation seems to be “spaceship”.
As for tracing the trajectory back, it seems to this reader that that necessarily assumes “and no interesting catastrophic events took place in the object’s (astronomical) vicinity for the last 10 million years.” Extraordinary, Captain. Extraordinary assumptions require extraordinary suspension of disbelief. Sadly Agent Mulder’s scripted line was always “I want to believe” rather than “I want to know”.
“Even those non-experimental corners of the above fields, like botany,“
Did you enjoy dinner? Thank a botanist. Genetics? Thank a botanist. Arabadobsis Thaliana for the win. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_research_on_Arabidopsis_thaliana
However did people get by before botanists invented vegetables and purpose-bred animals?
“No one would have believed, in the early years of the twenty first century, that human affairs were being watched from the timeless worlds of space. No one could have dreamed that we were being scrutinised as someone with a microscope studies creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. Few men even considered the possibility of life on other planets. And yet, across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to ours regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly, and surely, they drew their plans against us…”
Ah the classics.
And who also knew the Edorians were involved in so many pivotal events in Human history!
That reminds me. The time is close approaching for me to turn out the lights and listen to that radio broadcast by the other Mr Welles. You never tire of a classic. It’s a shame I no longer have a glowing tube radio to listen on.
Allow me to recommend this hybrid tube/MOSFET headphone amplifier:
https://github.com/Darmur/tubeamp. I’ve built a few of them now and love their retro sound.
If you decide to make one I recommend:
Increasing RV2 and RV3 to 50K so you can use a wider range of tubes (e.g. JJ Electronic).
Decreasing the value of the resistor for the power LED – use one of the online calculators to calculate a suitable resistance for the LED of your choice
When assembling the amp, insert the LED into the PCB, place the tube socket over it, solder the tube socket, then use the legs of the LED to push the LED into the bottom of the tube socket, and only then solder the LED. This will give you maximum illumination.
The project includes the STL file for a case but doesn’t include an STL file for the potentiometer knob. Here’s one that has worked really well for me: https://www.printables.com/model/911627-knob-for-6mm-encoderpotentiometer-with-or-without/files
You definitely need to avoid the conspiracy theorists more than you do this comet that will pass through our solar system when our planet is on the OPPOSITE side of the sun. Just relax, intelligent people of the Earth.
What’s with the garbage genAI image?