“If this is the case, then two possibilities follow: first that its intentions are entirely benign and second they are malign.”
There is a third: undecided.
“At the heart of this, is a question any self-respecting scientist will have had to address at some point in their career: ‘is an outlier of a sample a consequence of expected random fluctuation, or is there ultimately a sound reason for its observed discrepancy?’ A sensible answer to this hinges largely on the size of the sample in question, and it should be noted that for interstellar objects we have a sample size of only 3, therefore rendering an attempt to draw inferences from what is observed rather problematic.”
Not only the heart of the question, but of the paper.
> If this is the case, then two possibilities follow: first that its intentions are entirely benign and second they are malign.
And why do we assume that, if humans can have a whole spectrum of motivations from "entirely benign" to "entirely malign," that a presumably-much-more advanced civilization can't?
If it's malign there's really nothing we can do about it. A technology that can traverse the distance between solar systems is so far outside of our technology that it might as well be magic, and our current level of technology is already adequate to obliterate all life on the surface of the Earth. If you have power to travel interstellar distances the power to obliterate all life on a planet with no warning is trivial.
Ironically we might be in less trouble if they have FTL technology, since that might not require quite the outrageous level of technology you would need to do the journey with the physics that we know. The rocket equation is a harsh mistress.
This doesn't sound true given what we know about asymmetric warfare in general. What if we discovered the object really was an artillery shell sent to destroy us, but the civilization at the other end only has the resources to fire one every ten years with an accuracy of 1% to hit the Earth?
We might be like a primitive tribe facing an attacker with battleships - a technology that might as well be magic, but still one we can adapt to by abandoning the seafront village and retreating into the jungle.
“You know, the most amazing thing happened to me tonight. I was coming here, on the way to the lecture, and I came in through the parking lot. And you won’t believe what happened. I saw a car with the license plate ARW 357. Can you imagine? Of all the millions of license plates in the state, what was the chance that I would see that particular one tonight? Amazing!” — Richard Feynman, Six Easy Pieces
I'm in favor of spending more resources on research projects like building a probe to intercept one of these interstellar objects. It would be worth the investment to go and see, and it looks like the Vera Rubin will give us several targets.
I selfishly would rather invest in mining asteroids so that we may one day be qualified to manipulate their movements and prevent strikes of any planets in our solar system and to get rich of course. Even if it takes a few hundred years to become qualified for such mining that is a tiny blip in this spacetime and could mitigate at least some civilization ending events. The process of heading that direction is likely to result in many advancements in technology and slightly safer playgrounds to develop more intelligent androids assuming they don't get hacked resulting in dragging and flinging 20+ mile wide metal asteroids at us.
Do we have enough headsup on these to even plan such a mission? Was under the impression that by the time we realize they're there, they're already halfway out the door...
What's the minimum time to intercept something like this? Do we need 6 or 7 years, or is 3 years enough?
Related to this is Loeb's proposal to nudge the Juno spacecraft, currently orbiting Jupiter and soon facing EOL, into the path of 3I/Atlas to try to scan it and snap some pictures. I doubt it has enough fuel left, but I hope they're looking into it.
Most reasoned take is directly from the paper itself:
"We strongly emphasize that this paper is largely a pedagogical exercise, with interesting discoveries and strange serendipities, worthy of a record in the scientific literature. By far the most likely outcome will be that 3I/ATLAS is a completely natural interstellar object, probably a comet, and the authors await the astronomical data to support this likely origin."
It makes me sad that so many people are seemingly so aggressive against Loeb and his takes on this stuff. Whether things might be aliens or not, people get so upset whenever it's even mentioned as a thought experiment. We should be able to have a bit of fun here and there.
3l/Atlas itself is unlikely to be alien technology, but it is from way outside our solar system and deserves to be examined as closely as possible with every resourse availible, and at this point planning for ways to investigate interstellar objects more closely needs to be figured out......say, blast it with ultra high lasers and see what boils off!
the idea of malign intent ignores the physical economic factors that are true everywhere in the universe. The amount of energy it takes to get here from the next closest place, and the necessary probability that there is at least one other planet with every element we have, in much higher quantities, and closer to them, precludes any motive to wipe us out.
given the effort involved and the alternatives, the only possible reason to contact us is benevolent. also, if there is a single other civilization within range of contacting us, statistically and necessarily, there are also millions, if not billions of others to choose from.
No, there is no malign intent. Even considering it reveals some very mid reasoning. We are very likely emerging up the evolutionary scale to become the stupidest intelligent thing in the universe, but only just over the line of what passes for intelligence among space faring civilizations. The only concievable risk is from ourselves.
Given the difficulty of intercepting it, what are our best options (if any) for getting a decent picture of it? Obviously any data ata ll will be interesting, but I mean something better than a couple of pixels that require a degree in astrophysics to properly appreciate.
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 53.7 ms ] threadThere is a third: undecided.
“At the heart of this, is a question any self-respecting scientist will have had to address at some point in their career: ‘is an outlier of a sample a consequence of expected random fluctuation, or is there ultimately a sound reason for its observed discrepancy?’ A sensible answer to this hinges largely on the size of the sample in question, and it should be noted that for interstellar objects we have a sample size of only 3, therefore rendering an attempt to draw inferences from what is observed rather problematic.”
Not only the heart of the question, but of the paper.
Still fun, though!
And why do we assume that, if humans can have a whole spectrum of motivations from "entirely benign" to "entirely malign," that a presumably-much-more advanced civilization can't?
Ironically we might be in less trouble if they have FTL technology, since that might not require quite the outrageous level of technology you would need to do the journey with the physics that we know. The rocket equation is a harsh mistress.
We might be like a primitive tribe facing an attacker with battleships - a technology that might as well be magic, but still one we can adapt to by abandoning the seafront village and retreating into the jungle.
What probability are they talking about?
What's the minimum time to intercept something like this? Do we need 6 or 7 years, or is 3 years enough?
This was much more interesting: https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/comets/3i-atlas
https://avi-loeb.medium.com/how-close-can-the-juno-spacecraf...
"We strongly emphasize that this paper is largely a pedagogical exercise, with interesting discoveries and strange serendipities, worthy of a record in the scientific literature. By far the most likely outcome will be that 3I/ATLAS is a completely natural interstellar object, probably a comet, and the authors await the astronomical data to support this likely origin."
"Interstellar Comet 3/I Atlas - Probably Isn't An Alien Spaceship" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MafmhXwPgmo
(It has more to do with why we can't send a probe to investigate 3/I Atlas...)
given the effort involved and the alternatives, the only possible reason to contact us is benevolent. also, if there is a single other civilization within range of contacting us, statistically and necessarily, there are also millions, if not billions of others to choose from.
No, there is no malign intent. Even considering it reveals some very mid reasoning. We are very likely emerging up the evolutionary scale to become the stupidest intelligent thing in the universe, but only just over the line of what passes for intelligence among space faring civilizations. The only concievable risk is from ourselves.
I think it's much more likely that space aliens have FTL. Unless it's the klingons.