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0:00: the Joe Rogan experience.
0:02: >> Things are getting very wild.
0:04: >> Yeah, there is a lot of misinformation.
0:06: You know, some people said, "I invented
0:08: three eye atlas, this object, uh, in
0:11: order to distract attention from the
0:12: Epstein files."
0:13: >> Is that what people are saying?
0:15: >> Yeah. And I said, "Look, this object is
0:17: the size of Manhattan Island. It's at
0:20: four and a half times the Earth Sun
0:21: separation. Um, if I was able to put it
0:24: out there, you know, I would be more
0:27: powerful than the Pope." And because
0:29: we're talking about a giant object that
0:32: you can see from any place on Earth, you
0:34: know, you can buy online a telescope
0:38: that will allow you half a meter in size
0:40: that will allow you to see it. It's out
0:42: there. It cannot be faked.
0:44: >> Well, those people are fools. You can't
0:46: listen to those people.
0:47: >> I don't listen to those I I don't listen
0:49: to many people, you know. Uh initially a
0:52: lot of people were dismissing your
0:54: concerns and they were saying that this
0:56: object is nothing but a comet and it's
0:58: very normal. Uh but then as it got
1:02: closer and as we got more data, it seems
1:05: like you're correct.
1:06: >> Well,
1:07: >> this is a very unusual object.
1:09: >> There is something really important to
1:10: recognize here that usually when you
1:13: deal with scientific matters, they have
1:16: very little impact on the future of
1:18: humanity. Very little. You know if the
1:20: nutrino has a little bit of a mass
1:22: doesn't really matter. You know when we
1:24: discovered the Higs boson the biggest
1:26: impact was to confirm some idea we had
1:29: back in the 60s and you know obviously
1:32: that affected you know those people who
1:35: got the Nobel Prize but most of us
1:38: continued as if nothing happened.
1:41: However here if we ever encounter alien
1:45: technology everything will change. It
1:48: will affect the financial markets. It
1:49: will affect politics in a major way. So
1:52: my point is simple. This is different
1:54: than other scientific matters. And the
1:56: intelligence agencies know very well
1:59: that events with very small probability
2:01: have to be considered seriously because
2:05: they have they could have major
2:07: implications. Just think about October
2:09: 7th. The Israeli intelligence agencies
2:12: had a theory that the Hamas will do
2:15: nothing.
2:16: and they got data that indicated
2:20: something is going on out there but they
2:24: dismissed it because of their theory.
2:25: Now because as a result of their mistake
2:28: which was clearly a blunder a lot of
2:31: people died on both sides for that this
2:35: could have been avoided if they were to
2:37: consider a black swan event. an event
2:39: that you put a small probability for it
2:41: happening but you look at anomalies in
2:44: the data and say look the implications
2:46: are so huge we have to consider it and
2:48: you know this idea was already
2:51: considered by the philosopher
2:53: mathematician bless Pascal he talked
2:55: about god and he said look of course you
3:00: might think that god doesn't exist the
3:02: probability for that is small but the
3:04: implications if god exists the
3:06: implications are so huge that we have to
3:07: discuss
3:08: That was the argument, Pascal's wager.
3:11: And the intelligence agencies know that.
3:13: Believe me, the Israeli intelligence
3:15: agencies will not make that mistake
3:17: again. Now, here comes an object from
3:20: outside the solar system and it shows
3:22: anomalies.
3:24: The scientists would say we should be as
3:27: careful as possible at talking about
3:30: anything other than a rock.
3:32: Now they say that when they know that we
3:35: launched, humanity launched a lot of
3:37: space junk, you know, a lot of
3:39: technological objects to space and we
3:42: also know that there are 100 billion
3:45: stars like the sun in the Milky Way
3:46: galaxy alone. Most of them formed
3:49: billions of years before the sun and
3:51: there are billions of Earth sun
3:53: analoges. Now, we all believe that we
3:55: came out of a soup of chemicals. You
3:58: know, that's the scientific narrative of
4:00: how human intelligence came on this
4:03: earth. And so, it's quite likely that,
4:06: you know, we are not the first one.
4:08: Sorry to break the news. Uh Elon Musk
4:11: was probably not the most accomplished
4:12: space entrepreneur since the big bang
4:15: 13.8 billion years ago. And therefore,
4:18: we should consider the possibility that
4:20: things like us existed long before us.
4:24: And you can ask the question, how long
4:26: does it take our own technology, the
4:28: Voyager spacecraft that we launched out
4:30: of the solar system, how long does it
4:31: take it to move to the opposite side of
4:33: the Milky Way galaxy, you know,
4:36: thousands of light years away takes less
4:39: than a billion years. And that means
4:41: that all these civilizations that had
4:44: their history initiated billions of
4:47: years before ours could have done it.
4:50: And all we need to do as responsible
4:53: scientists is to check if among all the
4:58: rocks that come from outside of our
5:00: backyard are really rocks or maybe one
5:04: of these objects might be a tennis ball
5:06: that was thrown by a neighbor. And the
5:09: reason I say that is, you know, we live
5:10: at our home at our at the on earth next
5:14: to the sun. We look around us in the
5:17: cosmic street and we see a lot of houses
5:19: just like ours. There are billions of
5:21: them probably. Now my colleagues, those
5:27: scientists who think traditionally, they
5:30: say, well, you know, microbes came to
5:33: Earth very early, therefore they must be
5:36: everywhere. So, let's define our highest
5:39: priority, searching for microbes
5:42: on other houses in our cosmic street.
5:45: And I say, good. You can do that from
5:48: the vantage point of your home. You can
5:50: look through the window and search for
5:52: microbes in your neighbor's yards, but
5:54: you would need to put $10 billion to
5:56: develop a big enough instrument that
5:58: would be able to detect the chemical
6:00: fingerprints of microbes, you know, on
6:03: exoplanets.
6:05: uh and think about the possibility that
6:07: there was actually there is a resident
6:10: in one of those houses. You know, that
6:13: resident might show up in your front
6:14: door at some point or you might see
6:19: an object that arrives to your backyard
6:21: or your mailbox from that res.
6:24: >> Black swan event,
6:25: >> a black swan event. Or you might see
6:27: some construction project in from a
6:30: distance that might be easier to detect
6:32: than microbes. So we should hedge our
6:34: bets. You know, we should uh invest
6:38: billions of dollars on both fronts. At
6:41: the moment, the scientific community is
6:43: willing to allocate more than $10
6:45: billion to searching for microbes,
6:49: but no recommendation is made to
6:51: allocate any federal funding to the
6:53: search for intelligence. And I say that
6:54: that is an oversight.
6:56: >> Let's let's go back to I don't one more
6:59: time. Okay, I don't want to screw it up.
7:02: Um, how large was that?
7:05: >> That was was the size of a football
7:07: field.
7:09: >> Of all the 100 meters.
7:10: >> Small in comparison to three eyelas.
7:12: >> Oh yeah, that's my point that three eye
7:15: atlas is a million times more massive,
7:17: at least a million times more massive
7:18: than MUA. And I immediately as it was
7:21: discovered, you know, it was July 1st
7:24: and my wife asked me to go on vacation
7:26: to Aruba 2 days later. And uh as I was
7:30: going on the plane and as I arrived
7:32: there, I realized, wait, that doesn't
7:33: make sense cuz we should have seen
7:35: millions of uh omuamas before we saw
7:37: this one, you know, it's so big. And I
7:40: also realized there is not enough rocky
7:42: material per unit volume in interstellar
7:44: space to deliver such a giant rock into
7:48: the inner solar system within a period
7:50: of a decade. You would expect it at the
7:52: very optimistic scenario where you
7:55: package all the material into objects
7:57: that are 5 kilometer in diameter. You
7:59: would imagine once per 10,000 years. So
8:02: I wrote immediately a scientific paper.
8:04: My wife was not happy that you know on
8:06: our vacation I was sitting on my
8:08: computer but I just couldn't resist it.
8:10: And by the way this paper I submitted
8:13: for publication that was July 3rd or
8:16: something. Um and um then the editor
8:20: said, "Oh, the paper is fine, but you
8:23: have a concluding sentence at the end
8:26: where you say, well, unless the object
8:28: is smaller than estimated,
8:31: maybe it was targeting the inner
8:33: source." That was my solution to say you
8:36: know one way out of this dilemma of why
8:39: is it so big is if it was targeting the
8:42: inner solar system by design and indeed
8:44: the trajectory is aligned with the plane
8:46: of the planets around the sun to within
8:49: 5° the chance for that at random is one
8:52: in 500 okay and it's moving in a
8:55: retrograde trajectory opposite to the
8:57: motion of the planets which is ideal for
8:59: it to release mini probes that will get
9:01: into the planets it gets close to Mars
9:04: it gets close to Jupiter. It goes on the
9:06: opposite side of the sun uh relative to
9:09: Earth when it's closest to the sun. And
9:12: that's the time when a spacecraft could
9:14: do a maneuver to take advantage of the
9:16: sun's gravitational assist. You know,
9:18: all of these are interesting indications
9:20: that may imply that some intelligence
9:24: designed the trajectory. So I had one
9:26: sentence at the end of the paper saying
9:29: maybe the trajectory was designed and
9:32: the editor said no no no the paper will
9:34: not get published unless you remove that
9:36: sentence.
9:37: >> Wow.
9:38: >> So now when you when you listen to comet
9:41: experts that say well this claim or that
9:45: claim was never published in a
9:48: peer-review journal. Guess what? they
9:51: are the editors or the reviewers who are
9:54: blocking
9:55: the discussion on possibilities and I
9:59: think it's inappropriate especially in
10:00: the case of alien technology because
10:03: it's could be a black swan event. It
10:05: could be something that affects the
10:06: future of humanity and we if we behave
10:09: you know very conservatively we might
10:12: not last very long.
10:13: >> Well, it's also arrogant. It's it's
10:15: arrogant.
10:16: >> Yeah. This object is
10:19: how it shows that there's no iron.
10:21: >> Oh no. So yeah. So then the composition
10:24: of the plume of gas.
10:26: >> So this is this is before you knew about
10:28: the composition that you wrote this
10:30: paper.
10:30: >> Exactly.
10:31: >> So as time is going on, you are being
10:34: shown to be correct.
10:36: >> Well, we found more more anomalies.
10:37: >> More anomalies. So this is not a normal
10:39: thing.
10:40: >> Not a normal thing. So, for one thing,
10:42: uh there was a glow that looks like an
10:45: extended feature, and everyone said,
10:48: "Oh, that's a tail. That's the signature
10:51: of a comet." And I said, "Wait a minute.
10:53: It it's pointing towards the sun. It's
10:55: not pointing away from the sun."
10:56: Usually, cometary tails are made of dust
10:58: and gas, which is pushed back away from
11:01: the sun by the radiation and the solar
11:04: wind, you know. Um, and so this one was
11:08: pointed towards the sun, not away from
11:10: the sun. And the question is why? And um
11:13: actually I calculated that you know it
11:16: appeared very clearly in the sharpest
11:17: image we had from the Hubble Space
11:19: Telescope which showed an elongation by
11:22: a factor of two towards the sun but we
11:25: were looking at it like a cigar. We were
11:27: looking almost along the cigar long axis
11:31: uh within 10° of the object sun axis. So
11:34: we were looking almost edge on and I
11:37: calculated if you were to correct for
11:38: that this would be a feature that is 10
11:40: times longer than it is wide you know
11:43: and and that means it's like a jet so
11:46: the object was had a jet in front of it
11:49: towards the sun. The question is why?
11:51: And you know the comet experts ignored
11:55: it and just said well you know comets
11:57: are strange you know the who knows. Um
12:00: but my point is this is a blind date of
12:03: in interstellar proportions. And my
12:06: advice on blind dates is not to
12:09: speak or say what you think this is but
12:11: to observe the other side. You know the
12:14: best way to respond to a blind date is
12:16: to observe the other side. Don't speak.
12:18: Just observe the other side because it
12:21: may be different than what you think.
12:23: And maybe you know on one of the dates
12:25: you will have a serial killer on the
12:28: other side.
12:29: >> Oh boy. Now um explain if you could how
12:34: we know the composition of this thing.
12:37: So we can figure out composition of a
12:41: plume of gas uh by um taking a spectrum
12:46: of it which means you basically have
12:49: some kind of a prism that breaks you
12:51: know that a light with different
12:53: wavelengths is bent at different angles
12:56: and so you spread the light into the
12:58: different colors and if you do that you
13:02: you can find the uh fingerprints the
13:04: spectral fingerprints of specific atoms.
13:07: or molecules because each atom or
13:10: molecule has transitions. I I actually
13:13: teach I taught it just two days ago in a
13:17: class that I teach uh that is mandatory
13:20: obligatory at the Harvard astronomy
13:22: department where I was chair for a
13:24: decade you know like between 2011 2020.
13:27: So this is the mandatory class and I I
13:29: just taught how you know spectral lines
13:31: emitted by atoms and molecules just two
13:35: days ago. So this is a very well-known
13:37: thing and we know the the wavelengths of
13:40: those and and we use them to identify
13:43: the composition uh you know we know
13:45: which atoms produced these spectral
13:47: lines the fingerprints it's just like
13:49: fingerprints okay and and so what was
13:52: found you know and that's by multiple
13:54: teams there are three papers on that we
13:57: found
13:59: nickel a lot of nickel but no very
14:02: little iron at first no iron whatsoever
14:05: Now usually in all the comets in the
14:07: past from the solar system and also from
14:09: interstellar space there is one comet
14:11: Borisov that was found it's the second
14:13: interstellar object which looked just
14:15: like a familiar comet. I had nothing to
14:18: say about that one. It looked like a
14:19: comet behaved like a comet. It was a
14:22: comet but it had similar abundances of
14:25: nickel and iron. The only place where we
14:27: found before much more nickel than iron
14:30: is in alloys that we produce
14:32: industrially. For example, uh for
14:35: aerospace applications, uh nickel alloys
14:38: have a lot of nickel, no iron. So maybe
14:43: the skin of this object is is
14:45: industrially produced. That's that was
14:47: my suggestion. But what the authors of
14:49: these papers said is maybe nature is
14:52: capable of going through the same
14:55: chemical pathway of producing nickel
14:58: without iron as we do in our industries.
15:01: So they made the conjecture that this
15:03: carbonil pathway which is well known in
15:06: the industry world uh carbonil is the
15:08: pathway the name of the pathway they
15:10: said well maybe this carbon pathway
15:13: happens in nature uh we have never seen
15:16: it before but that is their explanation
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