Is 3I/ATLAS, the latest #interstellar object, an alien spaceship? - https://boingboing.net/2025/08/04/is-3i-atlas-the-latest-interstellar-object-an-alien-spaceship.html "At this early stage of its passage through our Solar System, 3I/ATLAS, the recently discovered interstellar interloper, has displayed various anomalous characteristics, determined from photometric and astrometric observations."
#interstellar
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2025-08-02 00:00:00 UTC (Delta: 2025-08-01)
#INTERSTELLAR VISITOR: 3I/ATLAS
Direction: Approaching the Sun
Days to perihelion: 88.48 days
Relative to the Sun 
- Distance (km): 517,570,164.20 km (-4,858,534.16 km)
- Distance (AU): 3.46 (-0.03)
- Light Travel Time: 28 minutes 46.48 seconds (-16.21 seconds)
Relative to Earth 
- Distance (km): 418,557,182.03 km (-2,055,182.49 km)
- Distance (AU): 2.80 (-0.01)
- Light Travel Time: 23 minutes 16.20 seconds (-6.86 seconds)
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• #Taiwanese 
private rocket company #TiSpace terminated the flight of one of its rockets shortly after lift-off in northern #Japan
• #Interstellar Technologies, backed by #Toyota, in 2019 became the first private rocket venture in Japan to reach space 
• #Canon-backed #SpaceOne conducted two failed orbital launches last year.
• #Honda last month succeeded in a low-altitude test of its prototype reusable 
rocket
https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2025/07/13/2003840220
台北時報 · Private rocket terminated mid-flight
If we could live forever, imagine drifting through the endless vast sea of the cosmos for billion of years. Not staying in one place but always moving. Of all the things we would have seen.
I'm excited to learn more about this visitor.
Space · Astronomers say new interstellar visitor 3I/ATLAS is 'very likely to be the oldest comet we have ever seen'
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It'll be interesting to watch the naming of this #interstellar candidate evolve!
I'm no expert on nomenclature, but it starts out with a 'near Earth Object' tag of #A11pl3Z but that should change to something like 3I/2025 U1 (?) shortly if confirmed an interstellar object.
Since 1I/2017 U1 was found by a Hawaiian observatory it was given a Hawaiian name - 'Oumuamua.
This new guy was spotted by an undergrad poring over Chilean telescope data, it will presumably get a Spanish name?
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Digging thru the articles to see if someone mentions an eccentricity* value and I see a post that says preliminary number looks like:
e=10.4 ± 1.1!
Whew - that's probably really moving. 'Oumuamua I think was in the 1.2 region.
*An e above 1 indicates it's not carving an ellipse around our sun, but rather its hyperbolic, just barrelling thru the region.
New paper out that I helped a little bit with: "A Demonstration of Interstellar Navigation Using New Horizons", where NSF NOIR Lab's Tod Lauer uses New Horizons images of the parallax Proxima Centauri and Wolf 359 (of Star Trek fame) to figure out the absolute position of New Horizons in near-interstellar space.
It's a very international collaboration, with participation from quite a few small-telescope observers in South America and Australia, and dedicated to the memory of a master Polynesian navigator who inspired some of the thought process. And Brian May too, because he's a friend of the mission.
My little role was in helping to analyze the pointing uncertainty in both the New Horizons and ground based data.
arXiv.orgA Demonstration of Interstellar Navigation Using New HorizonsAs NASA's New Horizons spacecraft exits the Solar System bound for interstellar space, it has traveled so far that the nearest stars have shifted markedly from their positions seen from Earth. We demonstrated this by imaging the Proxima Centauri and Wolf 359 fields from Earth and New Horizons on 2020 April 23, when the spacecraft was 47.1 au distant. The observed parallaxes for Proxima Centauri and Wolf 359 are $32.4''$ and $15.7'',$ respectively. These measurements are not of research grade, but directly seeing large stellar parallaxes between two widely separated simultaneous observers is vividly educational. Using the New Horizons positions of the two stars alone, referenced to the three-dimensional model of the solar neighborhood constructed from Gaia DR3 astrometry, further provides the spacecraft spatial position relative to nearby stars with 0.44 au accuracy. The range to New Horizons from the Solar System barycenter is recovered to 0.27 au accuracy, and its angular direction to $0.4^\circ$ accuracy, when compared to the precise values from NASA Deep Space Network tracking. This is the first time optical stellar astrometry has been used to determine the three-dimensional location of a spacecraft with respect to nearby stars, and the first time any method of interstellar navigation has been demonstrated for a spacecraft on an interstellar trajectory. We conclude that the best astrometric approach to navigating spacecraft on their departures to interstellar space is to use a single pair of the closest stars as references, rather than a large sample of more distant stars.
*Michael Caine voice: "The problem...is Gravity"
Somewhere among all this is the Space Drive that will take us to the Planets, and then the Stars, ....maybe.
https://phys.org/news/2025-05-reciprocity-photon-polarization-gravity-quantum.html
Phys.org · Twist of light: Non-reciprocity in photon polarization may unlock gravity and quantum mechanics link
Interstellar v0.9.2 update: comment UI updates, in-app post/comment language translation, marking posts as read, new landing page website
Interstellar v0.9.2 update: comment UI updates, in-app... #interstellarhttps://github.com/interstellar-app/interstellar/releases/tag/v0.9.2
GitHubRelease v0.9.2 · interstellar-app/interstellarFeatures
Add timeframe options for commented feed sort; by @olorin99 in #150.
Tapping on a comment now collapses it and the body text will be hidden, long tapping or right clicking a post or comme...
Выява дня: «Слупы стварэння» — скопішча міжзоркавага газу і пылу, аб’ект Месье M16, сузор’е Змяя.
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@rahmstorf please do not shoot the messenger! #zeitdilatation #interstellar #Luisa #Hanfgeschichten #NURausLIEBEzuDIR
+++ Warum ist die #Liebe in Interstellar so wichtig? +++ 
Interstellar ist ein US-amerikanisch-britischer #Science-Fiction-Film unter der Regie von #ChristopherNolan aus dem Jahr 2014. Der #Film spielt in einer dystopischen #Zukunft, in der die #Menschheit die [#Mutter] #Erde verlassen muss und ein neues Zuhause auf einem anderen Planeten sucht.
moviepilot.de · Interstellar: Die ultimative Erklärung für das Ende und die Handlung des Sci-Fi-FilmsDas Ende von Christopher Nolans Interstellar ist nicht leicht zu verstehen. Wir erklären euch, was die letzten Minuten des gigantischen Science-Fiction-Blockbusters bedeuten.
The #Lego recreation of the amazing docking sequence from #Interstellar that I didn't know was "necessary" in my life! 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqSPkZ-jny8
Najbardziej znana scena z filmu #Interstellar w animowanej wersji „zLEGOwanej” (w #Blender)
Interstellar Docking Scene – Recreated in LEGO // Blender Animation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqSPkZ-jny8
Interstellar v0.8.0 update: Profile & Filter List sharing, overhauled post creation screen, Mbin magazine/user/post notification controls, post/comment bookmarking, Linux ARM and Windows support, too much to fit here...
Interstellar v0.8.0 update: Profile & Filter List sharing,... #interstellarGitHubRelease v0.8.0 · jwr1/interstellarWarning: Due to the extra permission needed for bookmarking, all your Mbin accounts will need their oauth clients regenerated. To do so, for each Mbin server that you have accounts for, you will ne...
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I learned about this part of the #radiospectrum called the #waterhole around 1400 MHz that could serve as an #interstellar communications band. I was sooo excited that I took a photo of the frequency from the movie and tried to find a #websdr with coverage in the band.
https://www.seti.net/indepth/waterhole/waterhole.php
2/n
Happy Space Science Sunday! Did you know that Voyager 1 is the first man-made object to travel past the heliosphere, a protective area of magnetic energy and particles generated by the Sun. It crossed this boundary into interstellar space in 2012. Miraculously, the spacecraft, which launched in 1977, is still sending data back to Earth. While there have been some technical difficulties, like communication issues and power limitations due to the decay of its radioactive power source, the team behind Voyager 1 remains committed to maintaining the project and gathering data for as long as possible.
Image Credit: Caltech/NASA-JPL
#Yorku #AllanICarswellObservatory #YorkUObservatory #Astronomy #Astronomer #Space #Voyager1 #Interstellar #SpaceFacts #Science #DeepSpace #Spacecraft
Image Credit: Caltech/NASA-JPL
#Yorku #AllanICarswellObservatory #YorkUObservatory #Astronomy #Astronomer #Space #Voyager1 #Interstellar #SpaceFacts #Science #DeepSpace #Spacecraft
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The entire "love can breach across time" concept I thought was the most ridiculous idea of this film. I understand they were going for sentimentality but I still didn't like it.
When the original script was published online, it was a much better story in my opinion.
If anyone wants to read the original script, here is a PDF link.
https://www.screenwritersnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Interstellar-script.pdf
The uniqueness of this work is that for the first time #interstellar dust and interstellar gas were analyzed simultaneously. The scientists found out how much #methane is on the dust in the form of ice and how much is in the interstellar gas.
#Chemistry #SpaceScience #sflorg
https://www.sflorg.com/2025/01/sn01282501.html
www.sflorg.comAstrochemists Determined the Ratio of Methane in the Gas and Dust of a ProtostarScientists have explored one of the most common molecules of deep space
Interstellar v0.7.2 update: subs & blocks migration tool, inline videos, several fixes
Interstellar v0.7.2 update: subs & blocks migration tool,... #interstellarGitHubRelease v0.7.2 · jwr1/interstellarNew
BETA: Add a "Data utilities" section that allows you to migrate subscriptions & blocks between accounts (including between Mbin and Lemmy). Also includes a data removal tool for mass deletion ...
Netflix billboard for Interstellar with wind-powered TARS 
