The Board of Peace is a Crock of Shit
02.03.2026 09:26
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The Board of Peace is a Crock of Shit
Happy 3I/ATLAS perigee day! Now if only it would get a tiny bit closer to JWST for a proper mug shot... Any way, fingers crossed for some crazy new gas abundance measurements next week! Will its IR spectrum look as weird as it did back in August (or even weirder)? I can't wait to find out.
It's a sad day when you have to go to a popular space news site to find out what the hell is going on with the drastic changes at your own workplace (NASA Goddard). Thank heavens for high quality independent journalism during these dark times www.space.com/space-explor...
OH could also come from methanol photolysis. Admittedly, H2O is a more likely precursor in comets, but probably not the only source.
OH (hydroxyl radical) is detected in the radio L band, not H2O itself. Cometary H2O is primarily detected at IR wavelengths. To be able to detect either in an interstellar comet is a stupendous achievement.
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center will host a press release today at 3PM EST (UT2025-11-19 20:00) to disseminate their latest images of the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS. A lot of misinformation is flying around about this object, so this should be a timely dose of reality www.nasa.gov/news-release...
Celebrating 40 years since the discovery of buckyballs - yay for carbon! www.livescience.com/chemistry/sc...
You are downplaying how much of an outlier 3I/ATLAS is, in terms of its coma CO2 abundance. Having the highest CO2/H2O ratio of any known comet around 3au makes it extremely unusual. Not like other comets.
@jimmfelton.bsky.social Funnily enough, I am indeed an observational radio astronomer who specializes in spectral line studies of comets/Solar System bodies, that you could chat to about the latest 3I/ATLAS observations!
"Not by much" - it had 8 times the average coma CO2/H2O ratio at ~3au! Imagine a person with 8x longer legs than average... Still a human, but a very unusual one.
This is what I was thinking. It has a number of very unusual properties that combine to make it stranger than your typical comet.
Thanks for this - indeed, we can think of comets as like mini planets - each one is different... some more so than others. The field of interstellar object studies is so fascinating because it massively expands the parameter space of what comets can be like, and each one contains a new lesson.
References are for wimps
They say the best art is timeless, so here's one for the ages, lest we forget the madness of voting such scum of the Earth into office.
This ought to be engraved somewhere.
Any CO still outgassing?
I hypothesize it's most likely from alien disco smoke machines
Deliberately omitted the colour bar from the images distributed to press, to make them scientifically less usable in case of a premature leak. I can see how that would be annoying to a fellow scientist, but check the article if you're actually interested: arxiv.org/abs/2508.18209
Today our team released findings on the nature of the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS, based on our first round of JWST observations. The data are incredible: Not only did we detect and map gas and dust in the coma, but we found that 3I is one of the most CO2 rich comets ever seen! Check it out:
Also not really possible to hit a comet that hard without destroying it
All will be revealed in the next week... Big results from the space observatories are on their way. Not that empirical evidence is likely to fundamentally change the course of the outlandish Harvard narrative 😂
.. but finding a link between the water in Halley-type comets and Earth's oceans was the icing on the cake. There are still a lot of mysteries surrounding where Earth got it's surprisingly large water supply from, but impacts from icy comets during Earth's infancy, is a strong contender.
Me and the team have been busy over the last year, mapping heavy water in a comet called 12P/Pons-Brooks - our brightest comet yet observed using the ALMA telescope. Getting the first ever map for cometary HDO was a thrill!
Growing vegetables is so hit and miss. Many variables at play.
Our cherry tomato plants just will not stop producing, and it's starting to get silly
From an open-minded and unprejudiced perspective, I look forward, in the very near future, to supplying JWST spectroscopic evidence of whether 3I/ATLAS is a small, natural body of ice and rock, or an alien spaceship. Place bets now please!
The 6 year wait for a new interstellar comet is over... now it's time to bring out the big glass to crack wide-open a new field of planetary science. WATCH THIS SPACE FOR NEW ASTROCHEMICAL DISCOVERIES as our team chases down the alien visitor from another star: 3I/ATLAS. 🔭 📡 🛰️
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Dark times are upon us.
More shame on this administration for forcing out our best and brightest