It took months before somebody suggested the nitrogen ice explanation.
Avi Loeb seems like a harmless crank, ..
I don't see a run on tin foil hats right now.
"I trained 4 years to run 9 seconds and people give up when they don't see results in 2 months." —Usain Bolt. On this day in 2009, he set the world record for the 100m: 9.58 seconds, at the 2009 IAAF World Championships in Berlin. In 16 years, nobody has come close to breaking his mark.
There have been no detections of nitrogen outgassing from Oumuamua or any other comet.
And remember, it’s not aliens
Quote from: Don2 on 08/11/2025 05:57 pmAvi Loeb seems like a harmless crank, ..Dr Loeb is neither a crank nor harmless.He is a highly respected astronomer. Even on the topic of “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena” his Project Galileo is a hypothesis neutral attempt to gain controlled open source observational data to examine.On the other hand, in an age where Joe Rogan is looked to for explanations by millions and thousands are spouting off with unsupported conjectures, he is contributing to the distrust of science by waging a holy war of words against the well considered consensus. No one is going to prevent him from speaking but we wish he would be more tempered.Note that being a respected cosmologist doesn’t prevent him from making a fundamental mistake about astronomical imaging, and nothing prevents him from admitting his error. In fact, nothing excuses his not admitting it and apologizing with similar volume to that of his erroneous, and snarky, comments.QuoteI don't see a run on tin foil hats right now.You don’t?They are all the rage here in the US!Quote It took months before somebody suggested the nitrogen ice explanation. But that is a rational natural explanation. We have seen an enormous mass of nearly pure solid nitrogen and we know chunks are knocked off into space.Have some patienceQuote There have been no detections of nitrogen outgassing from Oumuamua or any other comet.There cannot be nitrogen on any periodic comet or one that has spent much time closer to the Sun than Saturn. Plus nitrogen doesn’t have strong emission lines in the visible or near-infrared. It is not clear that observations of 1I would have seen them.And remember, it’s not aliens
There cannot be nitrogen on any periodic comet or one that has spent much time closer to the Sun than Saturn. Plus nitrogen doesn’t have strong emission lines in the visible or near-infrared. It is not clear that observations of 1I would have seen them.
On the other hand, in an age where Joe Rogan is looked to for explanations by millions and thousands are spouting off with unsupported conjectures, he is contributing to the distrust of science...
Number of people who would have heard about 3I/ATLAS if Loeb had stayed silent: 𝐱Number of people who have heard about 3I/ATLAS: 𝐤 × 𝐱𝐤 >> 1
Non-gravitational acceleration exceeding cometary models. Spectral signatures absent in known asteroid taxonomy, including anomalous spectrum inconsistent with solar reflection. Albedo variations inconsistent with known materials. Deviation from Keplerian hyperbolic orbit inconsistent with outgassing models. Unusual shape inferred from lightcurve of reflected sunlight. Trajectory anomalously aligned with planetary orbital planes or selective inner planet targeting.
Loeb is a scientist and also an educator. There's this theory in education that students will learn better if a subject attracts their attention and captures their interest. An introductory chemistry teacher uses the 'magic trick' of turning a clear liquid dubbed water into a red liquid dubbed wine and then magically turning it back into water again, all just by adding a few sprinkles of powder.Nope, it's not (pure) water and it's definitely not wine. Nor is 3I/ATLAS aliens. The students quickly realize those liquids aren't water and wine and yet the trick captures their attention long enough for a little knowledge to maybe get in. Participants in this forum aren't the learners inhabiting the social media venue where Loeb is performing this pedagogical trick. That doesn't mean one of those learners whose attention is captured by imaginary aliens won't one day become an astrophysicist doing important work on interstellar objects. We all start somewhere.
Can we please stop discussing Loeb. It is adding zero value to the thread.--- Tony
Yeah, and I suggest that people voluntarily go back and delete their comments about Loeb and clean up this thread. Make it much more focused on the topic. I did that a week ago.
He held off making the video as he doesn’t like making videos about people. Especially as he’s a colleague with many, many papers. He’s going to look at the substance of Loeb’s claims and go through them.The Interstellar Object 3I/ATLAS, Avi Loeb and Aliens:
Preprint of our article submitted to ApJ Letters on 2025-08-25, describing the first results from our JWST NIRSpec campaign for 3I/ATLAS, at an inbound heliocentric distance of 3.32 au.
