NASA hosted a special press conference yesterday to unveil images and to answer questions around the mysterious interstellar 3I/Atlas object that’s caught the attention of the public and the imagination of some scientists that believe this may be an alien spacecraft.
NASA only shared very blurry or very pixelated images of the object..
3i/ATLAS update:
The first image is from an amateur, ground based astronomer.
The second is from NASA, the largest space agency in history.
Keep in mind that we were told the budget issue and government closure was delaying images coming out. We had to rely on amateur astronomers or other countries..
We all waited holding our breath for the big giant reveal from NASA of the images that would absolutely showcase this being a comment. Instead the mystery now deepens because NASA gave us things that clearly are worse than what even amateur astronomers gave us.
The comet! The intrigue! The potential mothership.
The famed Harvard professor is continuing to make the rounds in various media circuits in preparation for next week’s near Earth encounter with whatever in the world 3I/Atlas really is..
And this time Avi Loeb is hinting that we should be prepared for a potential black swan event!
🚨 3I/ATLAS – Astrophysicist Avi Loeb ; Suspicious comet may herald ‘black swan event’: – Elizabeth Vargas Reports pic.twitter.com/zSxmmB5Z5Y
Reaction to Loeb has been mixed.. some love him. Some think he is punking us all.. He also divides the UFO world, even Richard C. Hoagland had tension on Ground Zero with Clyde Lewis several weeks ago when Hoagland angrily asked Lewis to get Loeb on the air so he could debate him..
According to the New York Post, this is the first time ever that an interstellar object has been zoned in on by the group in a campaign, triggering one to sharpen skills and prepare the world for a possible threat from space.
Some of the bizarre behavior includes having an anti-tail, a particle jet that’s directed at the sun rather than vice versa, which is typically how comets flow. 3I/ATLAS also discharged a column that contained four grams of nickel per second, with no iron being present, which is unusual for comets, per The Post.
Before you get TOO Freaked over the threat.. In accordance, IAWN will be conducting a “comet campaign from November 27, 2025, through January 27, 2026”to refine methods for pinpointing ATLAS’ exact location.
“To prepare for the campaign, we will hold a workshop on techniques to correctly measure comet astrometry (a transformation without a change to a figure’s shape or size, such as rotation or reflection),” they wrote. Developing all weekend long in a space near you.
File this under “things you don’t think about until they start messing with satellites.”
It turns out that sometime this summer, we could experience the shortest day ever recorded—not because of daylight savings, not because of anything human-made, but because Earth itself might spin just a little bit faster.
But to the ultra-precise world of GPS systems, satellites, and timekeeping infrastructure, even that tiny tweak matters.
What’s behind the spin-up? That’s the strange part—scientists aren’t exactly sure. Earth has had minor fluctuations in rotation for as long as the earth existed, but starting around 2020, researchers began noticing that days were subtly getting shorter, more often.
The effects—if any—on daily life will likely be nonexistent. But still, it’s one of those reminders that this planet we call home is alive in its own way. Shifting. Spinning. And occasionally doing something none of us saw coming.
So yeah, this summer may feature the shortest day on record. Not that you’ll notice… unless your GPS suddenly does..
In a hypothetical scenario posed to a group of nearly 100 government representatives, NASA found that their plan to combat the asteroid hurtling towards Earth had several “high-level gaps,” according to their presentation.
They said space officials have “limited readiness to quickly implement needed space missions,” and methods to keep the public informed on the impending disaster are not fully developed.
Of all the videos we see of astronauts they slowly float in the low gravity moon atmosphere… why is this securely planted on the ground and not floating..
Now of course when something hits the moon surface, it stays right? It won’t float anymore even if light.. but it would be interesting to see video of the photo being placed down. Was it dropped or held down to ‘attach’ itself to the surface?
Today, NASA released the first image from the James Webb Space Telescope after sharpening its focus, as the agency plans to start peering at the earliest galaxies in the universe.
The image shows a brilliant, blazing orange star know as 2MASS J17554042+6551277… with multiple galaxies in the background.
How beautiful, profound, and breathtaking to consider this massive immense and ever expanding universe and our small little piece of insanity where we still fight caveman fights…
NASA says it plans to retire the International Space Station in 2031 by crashing it into an uninhabited stretch of the Pacific Ocean. Phil McAlister, director of commercial space at NASA Headquarters, said in a press release that the private sector will be taking the lead on the development of future space station projects and that NASA will help ensure a smooth transition.
“The private sector is technically and financially capable of developing and operating commercial low-Earth orbit destinations, with NASA’s assistance,” he said. “We look forward to sharing our lessons learned and operations experience with the private sector to help them develop safe, reliable, and cost-effective destinations in space.”
NASA’s Voyager 1 is now floating beyond our solar system. It left these here parts about 10 years back now.. And since then, an intriguing event has been constantly beamed back to the earthlings fascinated by his venture into the deep dark unknown universe..
“We’re detecting the faint, persistent hum of interstellar gas,” said Stella Koch Ocker, a doctoral student at Cornell University who lead the research. “It’s very faint and monotone, because it is in a narrow frequency bandwidth.” For almost one billion miles, Voyager 1 could hear the monotone drone and the researchers believe these weak plasma waves are distinct from other detections made in the vast nothingness of interstellar space. For instance, sometimes the sun gets cranky and erupts, spitting particles out into space. The outbursts have a characteristic signature that James Cordes, an astronomer at Cornell, likens to a lightning burst. Those bursts were once used to determine the density of interstellar plasma, but this low, constant hum shows Voyager is collecting plenty of information without the solar outbursts. “Now we know we don’t need a fortuitous event related to the sun to measure interstellar plasma,” said Shami Chatterjee, a research scientist at Cornell and co-author on the paper.
It is so cool to think that Voyager 1 has been traveling since 1977. And this idea, this notion, that we don’t know what that weird hum is? Well that is awfully cool, too.
Sadly it may be a mystery so many alive today won’t be alive when we find out more information..
There will be another NASA mission set for the 2030s. Maybe. http://interstellarprobe.jhuapl.edu/ Perhaps that mission can start to put the puzzle together..
x x x
The long history
Back in 1977, this is how the UPI reported the launch of this historic mission:
The fact it is still rolling through the outer limits of our imagine is just amazing. Yes we had a helicopter on Mars this year. But this craft launched in the Carter administration is still alive and well, feeling its way through the darkness to locate the hum of new existence.
“It’s very faint and monotone, because it is in a narrow frequency bandwidth,” says Stella Koch Ocker, a doctoral student in astronomy at Cornell and lead author on the paper. “We’re detecting the faint, persistent hum of interstellar gas.”
Ocker adds that this means the interstellar gas might be more active than scientists previously thought, as the gentle plasma hum Voyager 1 hears is fairly consistant behind bigger signals.
“The interstellar medium is like a quiet or gentle rain,” says senior author James Cordes, professor of astronomy at Cornell. “In the case of a solar outburst, it’s like detecting a lightning burst in a thunderstorm and then it’s back to a gentle rain.”
The video was shared by NASA and, according to the space agency, captures the sound of a northwest Martian wind blowing at 10 to 15 mph..
“Capturing this audio was an unplanned treat,” said Bruce Banerdt, InSight principal investigator at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in a statement. “But one of the things our mission is dedicated to is measuring motion on Mars, and naturally that includes motion caused by sound waves.”
NASA explained that the audio is wind vibrations picked up by two sensors on the lander and not an actual recording from a microphone. However, the Mars rover that will be launched in 2020 will have microphones aboard.
