Breathless speculation aside, I think it would be extremely cool if we could identify, intercept and sample an extrasolar object at some point in my lifetime.
The most amazing thing to me (after reading Wikipedia on this very-recent classification of "Interstellar Object"), is that only two prior have been confirmed, and all in the last decade.
By this point it looks like they are not that rare. Lets just hope the next one does not have enough delta-v to change its trajectory to intercept us - at a couple dozen km/s. ;-)
Meanwhile, in this life, some dogs and cats were apparently being eaten, so we get this: https://www.space.com/space-exploration/nasa-is-sinking-its-...
That just means that the first people making contact with the object will not be speaking English, not that it will not happen at all
> For the layman: These plots show a sudden burst of acceleration on the object, and the push points mostly in one steady direction within the orbital plane. A normal comet warms up and ramps its outgassing gradually, and breaking apart would look chaotic with the direction of thrust changing randomly.
> Here we see one short, powerful jet, like a sealed pocket finally venting, so the speed jumps sharply while the path stays in the same plane; it accelerates but it surprisingly doesn’t change direction.
> It resembles what a single thruster would do (what an incredible prospect!), but it can technically still be explained by a natural rupture of volatile ices in an ancient space rock.
Seems odd to me that there would be one short, powerful jet of a natural explanation. Why hasn’t this thing been outgassing like crazy the whole time?
Maybe it was cooking away like a sealed food container in a microwave, internal pressure building, then the seal is breached and the internal pressure is released in a single event.
Current speculation is that it's a novel object type, unlike the conglomerate iceballs we call "comets," with a different origin and history.
Unfortunately we did not make the heroic effort it would have taken to get a close look, so as with 1I/ʻOUMUAMUA we'll be left with enigmas and uncertainty.
Unless of course it brakes hard into a parking orbit. :)
I guess the aliens are here to watch the AI bubble pop.
Plot twist: the aliens are AI and are here to watch the meat bubble pop!
For the fans of the genre, some more speculation by the master speculator himself:
https://avi-loeb.medium.com/post-perihelion-data-on-3i-atlas...
Solar heating and outgassing on the side facing the sun.
- [deleted]