Comet 3I Atlas - The Interstellar Voyager Unveiled

This is Spacetime Series twenty eight, episode one hundred, for broadcast on the twentieth of August twenty twenty five. Coming up on Spacetime, new details about our latest interstellar visitor, three Eye Atlas, a new theory suggesting Earth in the Milky Way galaxy may be located deep inside a cosmic void, and Space Station Crew ten returned safely to Earth. All that and more coming up on space Time. Welcome to space Time with Stewart Gary. Astronomers using Nassas Hubble Space Telescope have taken the sharpest observation jet of our latest interstellar visitor, the comet three Eye Outlas. The new data, reported in the Astrophysical Journal let have provided the best images yet of this mysterious object. Astronomers say that, based on their observations, three I Atlas has a soldid icy nucleus which is somewhere between three hundred and twenty meters and five point six kilometers in diameter. The exact size is somewhat open to interpretation because the nucleus is surrounded by a thick, dusty COMA. Hubble is one of numerous observatories either in orbit or on the ground intensely studding this comet. Observations from other NAS emissions, including the web Space Telescope, a Transiting Exoplanet Survey, satellite tests, and the Swift Space Telescope, as well as ground based observatories like the ten meter KECTWINS in Hawaii, will help to further refine sciences understanding about the comet, including its exact size, chemical makeup, and physical properties. Hubbles also capture a dust plue ejected from the sunwarm side of the comet and the hint of a dust tail streaming away from the nucleus. Hubble datas yielding a dust loss rate which is consistent with Solar System comets when they're first detected around four hundred and eighty million kilometers from the Sun. So this behavior is. Very much like the signature of previously seen sunbound comets originating from within our Solar System. Of course, the big difference is that this interstellar visitor originated from another star system somewhere else in the galaxy three I outlets, is traveling through our Solar System at a staggering two hundred and nine thousand kilometters per hour. That's the highest velocity ever recorded for any interstellar visitor. It's breathtaking velocity. It's evidence that the comet's been traveling through interstellar space for many billions of years. Current estimates suggest that it could be seven billion years old. The gravitational slingshot effect from innumerable stars and nebuly encountered by the comet during its journey has added momentum ratcheting up at speed, and the longer three eye outlasts was out there in space, the higher at speed grew. Science team leader for Hubble observations, David Jewett from the University of California, Los Angeles, no one knows for sure exactly where this comet came from. He says, it's a bit like glimpsing a rifle bullet in flight for just a thousandth of a second. You simply can't project that object back with any degree of accuracy to figure out exactly where it started. On its path. The comet will remain visible to ground based telescopes for the rest of this month and through September, after which time it will pass too close to the Sun to be observed, but is expected to reappear on the other side of the Sun by early December. This report from Nasstva. Using NASA's Hubble Space telescope, a team of astronomers captured the clearest image to date of the unexpected interstellar commet three I Atlasts. Astronomers are now able to more precisely estimate the size of the comet's solid icy nucleus. Its estimated diameter is no bigger than three point five miles across, but potentially as small as one thousand feet across. Hubble captured a dust plume ejected from the sun worn side of the comet and the hint of a tear drop shaped dust tail streaming away from the nucleus. This behavior is similar to that of previously seen sunbound comets originating within our Solar System. The big difference is that this mysterious visitor came from an ancient and unknown realm of our Milky Way, launching from an undetermined star system long ago and far away. In what may be the final chapter in its space odyssey, three I Atlas is plunging towards the Sun at a staggering one hundred and thirty thousand miles per hour. This is the highest velocity ever recorded for a Solar System visitor. The comet's astonishing speed suggests it has traversed interstellar space for billions of years. The comet gained speed due to the gravitational slingshot effect of the stars and other objects it encountered. The longer three Iatlists traveled through interstellar space, the faster it moved. Hubble observations suggest that Commet three Iatlists was likely expelled from a developing planetary system. This occurred as icy bodies aggregated within an outer disc or ring surrounding a star, further supporting the idea that such outer belts are common in planet forming systems. Another possibility is that three iat Lists is just a fragment of a small icy planet that came too close to a white dwarf star, disintegrated under the stress of gravity and scentence, shards cannon balling back into space. Three Iatlis is an icy fossil from a time perhaps before Earth even existed. If three iAtlas has wandered among the stars for nearly half of the Milky Way's age, it provide insights into the history of our galaxy and the processes behind our solar system's formation. Comet three Iatlists will make its closest approach to the Sun in October twenty twenty five, but don't worry, it won't be anywhere near Earth. NASA's assets, including Hubble, the James Webb Space Telescope, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, and the Swift Observatory, will closely monitor the commet to measure its chemical composition as the Sun's heat further sublimates its ices. Should it survive the perilous journey near the Sun, the chances of three I Atlas experiencing another close encounter with a star are incredibly remote. It's also possible that three I Atlas, like many fragile commet nuclei, approaching the Sun, could break apart or disintegrate into dust, bringing its existence to an end. Each new discovery offers astronomers valuable insights into both our own Solar System and the distant universe beyond Tree. I Atlas is only the third interstellar object ever observed to be traveling through our Solar System. There have a dadly been others, are there only three we know about for sure. The first was a mal Maur, which was discovered back on October the nineteenth, twenty seventeen, approximately forty days after it passed its closest point to the Sun on September the ninth. When it was first observed, mail Mao was around thirty three million kilometers from Earth and already heading out of the Solar System. It's estimated to be between one hundred and one thousand kilometers in length, with a width and thickness estimated to be between thirty five and one hundred and sixty seven meters. Interestingly, it has a. Reddish color similar to objects from the outer Solar System. Even more fascinating, despite its close approach to the Sun, it showed no signs of having a coma, the usual nebulau seen around comets, which is formed as they passed near the Sun and are heated up, allowing volatile gases to expand an escape. Also, a mal Maour appears to be tumbling rather than spinning as it moves. Interestingly, it exhibited a sudden non gravitational acceleration as it left the Solar System, possibly either due to outgassing or a push. From solar radiation pressure. As best as we can tell, a mal Mara apiece to have come from roughly the direction of Vega in the constellation Lyra It entered our Solar System from the north of the plan of the Ecliptic on a strongly hyperbolic trajectory. The Sun's gravity then bent its orbit in a sharp turn again northwards, and it's now heading away from the Sun towards the constellation Pegasus. The second confirmed interstellar visitor was the comet two I Borisov, which was first observed on August the twenty ninth, twenty nineteen. Borisov passed through the ecliptic of the Solar System at the end of October twenty nineteen, and that its closest approach to the Sun on December the eighth of that year. Early estimates suggested the nucleus of the comet is somewhere between one point four and sixteen kilometers wide, and unlike Solar System comets, Borisov noticeably shrunk during its Solar System flyby, losing at least zero point four percent of its mass before perihelion, its closest approach to the Sun, Borisov entered our Solar system from the direction of Cassiopea in the border with Perseus, on an extremely hyperbolic trajectory. Now this direction indicates it probably originated from the galactic plane rather than the galactic halo. It's leaving our Solar System in the direction of the constellation Teroscopium. This space time. Still to come is planet Earth, and for that matter, the Milky Way in a cosmic void, and four SpaceX crew teen astronauts have returned safely to Earth after spending five months aboard the International Space Station. All that and more still to come on space time observations to astronomers that the large scale structure of the universe is shaped sort of like a giant cosmic web, comprising filaments of galaxies, galaxy clusters, and superclusters spread around the edges of giant, near empty voids. Now, a new hypothesis has revived the idea that planet Earth, and for that matter, our entire Milky Way galaxy, may not be residing along one of the filaments of the cosmic web, but rather inside one of the giant voids, and that's making the universe expand faster here than in neighboring. Regions of the cosmos. The idea is a potential solution to the Hubble tension, and it could help confirm the true age of our universe, which is currently estimated to be around thirteen point eight two billion years. The new research provided of the Royal Astronomical Society's National Astronomy Conference in Durham shows that pressure waves from the early universe, essentially the sound ways from the Big Bang, support this idea. The Hubble constant, first proposed by Edwin Hubble in nineteen twenty nine, is designed to express the rate at which the universe is expanding. It can be measured by observing the distance of celestial objects and how fast they're moving away from us. The stumbling block, however, is that extrapolating measurements of the distance of the early universe to today using the standard cosmological model predicts a slower rate of expansion. The measurements of the nearby, more recent universe indicate this is the Hubble tension. The Steadies, lead author in Grenelled Banning from the University of Portsmouth, says a potential solution of this inconsistency is that the Milky Way galaxy that includes the Earth may be close to the center of a large local void. Bannick says that would cause matter to be pulled by gravity towards the higher density exterior regions of the void where the filaments are leading to the void becoming emptier with time. As the voids emptying out, the velocity objects away from us would be larger than if the void simply wasn't there. This therefore gives the appearance of a faster local expansion rate even explained dark energy. Bannik says that would mean the Hubble tension is largely a local phenomenon, with little evidence that the expansion rate disagrees with expectations in the standard cosmology further back in time. So a local solution like a local void is a promising way to go about solving the problem. But for the idea to stand up, planet Earth in our Solar system would need to be near the very center of the void, about a billion light years in radius and with a density about twenty percent below the average for the rest of the universe as a whole. Now directly counting galaxies does support this theory. That's because the number density in our local universe is lower than in neighboring regions. However, it doesn't mesh particularly well with the standard model of cosmology, which suggests that matter today should be more uniformly spread out on such large scales. Despite this, the new data shows that baryon acoustic oscillations pressure wasts from the Big Bang do support the idea of a local void. These waves traveled for any short period of time before becoming frozen in place once the universe cooled enough for neutral atoms to form. They act as a standard cosmic ruler whose angular size can be used to chart the cosmic expansion history. A local void slightly distorts the relation between the baryon acoustic oscillation's angular scale and the red shift how far the universe has expanded simply by the stretching of space time. That's because the velocity is induced by a local void and its gravitational effect slightly increase the red shift on top of that due to cosmic expansion. By considering all available baryonic acoustic ossolation measurements over the last twenty years, the authors have shown that AVOID model is about one hundred million times more likely than AVOID free model with parameters designed to fit the cosmic microwave background observations taken by the Plank satellite, the so called homogeneous Plank cosmology. The cosmic microwave background is a relic radiation that fills all space time and the observable universe. It occurred about three hundred and eighty thousand years after the Big Bang, when subatomic particles in the quak glue on plasma cooled enough to come together to form the first atoms, and its remnants are still there, filling the entire universe that now cooled down to just two point seven degrees above absolute zero. In fact, if you have an old analog radio or TV, you can actually see and hear the cosmic microwave background as the white noise static you get between channels. This is space time still to come. Another crew from the International Space Station returned safely to Earth, and later in the Science report, researchers develop a new brain interface computer that can read your mind with a seventy four percent accuracy rate. All that and more still to come on space time. Four SpaceX crew ten astronauts have returned safe back to Earth after spending five months aboard the International Space Station. Their drag and capsule Endurance splashed down in the North Pacific Ocean off the California coast, just six hours after undugging from the orbiting outpost. They've been replaced by four SpaceX crew eleven team members who arrived on station last week. During their stay on station, the team contributed to more than two hundred scientific experiments, including studying plank growth, house cells interact to gravity, and the effect of micro gravity on the human eye. This is Space Time and time out to take another brief look at some of the other stories making use in science this week with a science report. A new study suggest a Mediterranean style diet may help slow down cognitive decline. A report in the Journal of the American Medical Association measured hippocampal sclerosis, a severe decline in brain cells and processes in areas of the brain linked with dementia in Alzheimer's. The stud involved eight hundred and nine people for whom dietary information and brain autopsies were available. They found those on diets which combine elements of a Mediterranean diet and dietary approaches to stop hypertension were less likely to have signs of hyppocampal sclerosis in their brains. You authors say the finding suggests that sticking to a Mediterranean diet may well help reduce the risk of dementia and Alzheimer's disease. Scientists have discovered fossil evidence of a new species of ancient whale on Victoria's surf coast. The findings, reported in the Zoological Journal of the Linum Society, claims the twenty six million year old dolphin cy citation and Jenesustis dallati, is based on the partial skull and earburns, as well as teeth. First uncovered in twenty nineteen, it featured a short snout, large forward facing eyes, razor sharp slicing teeth, and a compact body built for hunting. The study, which is thought to have a bit of a. Juvenile, offers remarkable insights into the early evolution of baileen whales, the filter feeding giants now cruising our oceans. Scientists have developed a new brain computer interface that can read your mind with a seventy four percent accuracy level. A report in the journal Cell claims the device could even decode your inmost thoughts. The authors measured brand activity in four people who had SEV paralysis from murder, neurine disease, or brainstem stroke, recording their inner speech data. They then trained an artificial intelligence model to interpret the imagined words. The AI was. Able to decode sentences from a vocabulary of up to one hundred and twenty five thousand words with an accuracy level of seventy four percent. They also demonstrated that it could use a password to start the system decoding, such as Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, which it was able to wreckon with ninety eight percent accuracy. Also say the new findings could help people communicate even if they're unable to audibly speak. All the final countdowns now on the way to tomorrow's launch of the latest Google Pixel Tense smartphones. Rumors suggests the new phone will include a Tensor G five chip, higher spec cameras, a new range of colors, battery upgrades, and the ability to work with megasef accessories just like Apple. With the details, we're joined by technology editor Alex saharov Roy from Tech Advice. Start life to the Tense generation of Google's phones, and currently they have the regular model, they have two pro models or a smaller one and a large one, and they have the folding phone as well. So there's going to be faster processes, better cameras, more AI and they're going to really give a challenge to what Apple is doing because Apple is behind. They're late birth with a folding phone and also with their AI as well. Yeah, Apple has been working on having a folding phone with no creature in the screen, and the screen supplier is Samsung. Earlier this year did show off a folding screen technology that had no crease. But obviously it takes time to go from a model that you show at a trade show to a model that is able to be produced at the scale thatt both Samsung requires for its own devices, and of course at the scale that Apple requires, which is in theory many orders of magnitude more because of course Apple sells for most phones compared to anybody else. Now, Apple has been working very hard on AI, but it's had a number of its staff stolen effectively hied away by Open AI or most notably Meta. I mean Meta, which is the company behind Facebook, is wanting to pay one research in particular a quarter of a billion dollars. I mean that's serious money to steal somebody away from Google, or from Apple or from anybody else. That reports have come out in the last week or so that Apple is going to have not only a much smartest serie, but robots that are one is like a Pixar style lamb. It's a robot that can sit on a table and it can talk to you and do various things. They're talking about humanoid robots as well. And look, you know, some of these things are plans that will change by the time you know, anything comes to fruition. And some of this is just simply Apple's way to say, look, we're doing stuff too. And the big theme of twenty twenty five is agentic AI, where AI is not simply answering questions anymore about anything that you ask it, but can now do things for you, call people, search things, give you reports, give you recommendations. And this is what the sci fi robots of the future have been portrayed as doing for decades to come true. Too. Was the year that George Jetson was meant to be born, Yes, twenty sixty two, that was when the Jetsons were set. Yeah, I mean, we still don't have George Jetson car that can shrink down into the size of a briefcase reality and all the job yet. Yeah, that's right, I'm looking forward to that happening one day. I mean, of course, basically these Brockets did have Zoom predicted. We do, of course, have all sorts of robots vacuums. Well, we have all sorts of a robot vacuum cleaners. It's a no brainer that we're going to have home robots in the style of Optimus, in the style of a humanoid android that will be able to have multiple tasks within. The next five years. They're talking about that, and they won't be that expensive. Yeah, that's the beginning. Obviously. We want robots to effectively become as affordable as a good smartphone is. Today. That's alex ohrrol Royd from Tech Advice, Start Life, and that's the show for now. Spacetime is available every Monday, Wednesday and Friday through Apple Podcasts, iTunes, Stitcher, Google podcast, pocker Casts, Spotify a Cast, Amazon Music, bytes dot Com, SoundCloud YouTube, your favorite podcast download provider, and from space Time with Stuart Gary dot com. Space Time's also broadcast through the National Science Foundation, on Science Owe Radio and on both iHeartRadio and tune In Radio. And you can help to support our show by visiting the Spacetime Store for a range of promotional merchandising goodies, or by becoming a Spacetime Patron, which gives you access to triple episode commercial free versions of the show, as well as lots of burnus audio content which doesn't go to air, access to our exclusive Facebook group, and other rewards. Just go to space Time with Stewart Gary dot com for full details. You've been listening to space Time with Stuart Gary. This has been another quality podcast production from bytes dot com.