3rd Interstellar (maybe) comet heading this way

I really hope it is an alien craft. If only to get us humans to get over our arrogance that we are the smartest or only life in existence. It would be pretty sad and dull knowing we are it.
 

Oldeagle66 said:
I really hope it is an alien craft. If only to get us humans to get over our arrogance that we are the smartest or only life in existence. It would be pretty sad and dull knowing we are it.
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Here's about a dozen cases of UFO encounters from people all over the world who didn't know each other.
They didn't get fame, they got infamy. Some were miserable for decades after.
They didn't get rich, in fact, some of them lost their jobs, lost their spouses, lost friends, or their kids were estranged.

There was nothing in it for them, so why would these people lie?

 
This one's from my favorite channel about the universe. It's mainly about what 3I/ATLAS is made of, what it's carrying, and what it's out-gassing, all of which is very strange. But it helps scientists theorize about where it came from and what things are like there.

 
ohioboy said:
That would be a 400,000 + mile diameter object. You must have read it wrong.
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I got it right. And they're saying it's getting larger as it gets closer to the sun. But that's the size of the whole entire object. No one knows the size its nucleus, the actual rock (or whatever it is). It's coma/aura/halo is an extremely thick, massive, super bright and reflective cloud of dust, ice, and gasses. It's tail got massively long all of a sudden, too. Just weeks ago, it was so short, they hesitated to call 3I/ATLAS a comet.

Their guessing the nucleus is between 0.32 and 5.6 kilometers in diameter. That's some range, right?...because they can't see the dang thing.

It's going to be close enough to a couple of ESA/NASA probes to get better data and maybe even photos next month. But we have no idea how 3I/ATLAS will react when it gets close to our sun's plasma in a week or two.
 
Murrmurr said:
Made me think of the movie Don't Look Up, about two astronomers attempting to warn humanity about an approaching comet that will destroy human civilization, and no one listens.
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An unusually good movie. I was able to buy a copy for myself. At the time, it was not readily available, but I wanted that in my collection.
 
As for the "thing" coming our way, I hope it doesn't hurt us. I doubt that it has intentions, however. While the Universe is made up of mostly boring empty space. It's big enough to host a lot of different kinds of things. Although it's rare, at least by human standards, things do bump into each other.
 
ohioboy said:
I see, I should have realized you were talking about the Tail's various lengths, not the actual diameter.
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No, I am talking about the diameter of the object, which includes it's coma (aka aura, aka halo), the ball of debris around a rock (probably). Basically, the round part. And with 3I/ATLAS, the cloud of stuff around it is usually opaque.

The tail is measured separately.
 
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JustDave said:
As for the "thing" coming our way, I hope it doesn't hurt us. I doubt that it has intentions, however. While the Universe is made up of mostly boring empty space. It's big enough to host a lot of different kinds of things. Although it's rare, at least by human standards, things do bump into each other.
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Some astronomers believe it is a chunk off a planet that was impacted by something either very large or extremely dense. Others believed it was part of a sun that exploded until space probes analyzed it's make up. And it's make up isn't like anything they've seen before. But our newest telescopes can see a lot more and a lot farther.
 
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