Adam Hibberd

There is this theory about ‘Oumuamua that certain parties seem to be pursuing quite aggressively despite there being little or no evidence to substantiate it, in fact it can be quite easily shown to be incorrect.

This idea is that ‘Oumuamua ISN’T AN INTERSTELLAR OBJECT at all but a SPENT ROCKET STAGE used in some interplanetary mission by NASA or some other space agency, which has received a gravity assist (GA) from one or a combination of encounters of the planets Mercury, Venus or Jupiter.

Let me now try and break it to you parties gently that you are all entirely wrong and what’s more you are totally deluding yourselves.

So first of all, if you back-track ‘Oumuamua’s trajectory it can be shown quite conclusively that it came NOWHERE NEAR the planets Mercury, Venus or Jupiter, thus ruling out any combination of GAs from these planets. Go here for instance.

I helpfully and respectfully suggest that you all look into QUANTIFYING precisely some way in which your suggested mechanism could boost the speed of ‘Oumuamua (or spent rocket stage) to such an extent that it achieves a speed WAY IN EXCESS of the Solar System ESCAPE SPEED.

I also suggest to you that as far as Jupiter is concerned, you could look into a metric called the TISSERAND PARAMETER, which when calculated for a Jupiter reference would establish (POSSIBLY) whether ‘Oumuamua came from an encounter with Jupiter.

Finally I suggest you do a paper on the subject and get it peer-reviewed.

Instead of doing any of these useful suggestions please don’t keep coming back at me, time and time again!

I am trying to help here, what else am I to do?

Adam Hibberd

Could we have done a sample return to ‘Oumuamua?

What’s that?

A sample return would go to ‘Oumuamua, dispatch an impactor, pick up the dust from the resulting impact plume using aerogel, and finally return to Earth for atmospheric re-entry with the sample on-board to be analysed by scientists on Earth.

Well this trajectory gives an answer. We could have done so if:

(1) we had detected ‘Oumuamua early enough

(2) we had a s/c lying in wait at the Sun/Earth Lagrange 2 Point (L2)

Now it’s too late for either (1) or (2) but maybe for some future ISO (another Interstellar Object like ‘Oumuamua), we could try this out? The Comet-Interceptor mission to be launched in 2029 will do a comet flyby or possibly an ISO flyby but not a sample return.

The main issue with a sample return is the huge relative velocity that the spacecraft would have with respect to the target ‘Oumuamua, probably way in excess of 60 km/s. Thus the spacecraft could well be taken out by debris ejected from the plume. Note aerogel works best for relative velocities of < 6 km/s, in other words a full order of magnitude lower than the spacecraft’s encounter with ‘Oumuamua.

So this is a big problem, not just for ‘Oumuamua specifically, but for ISOs in general.

Adam Hibberd

I have woken up at some ungodly hour and what of all things should I be obsessing about? You guessed it – that weirdness of weirdnesses, to use a word employed many times by H. P. Lovecraft himself, the truly eldritch interstellar object known as ‘Oumuamua.

I occasionaly grasp for a mental image of this almost-lone extrasolar visitor to our abode, but I dare not fill in the unknown aspects of this celestial body to give me a full picture, though my imagination demands it, my scientific integrity simply does NOT allow it.

All we have is its strange set of observed characteristics, one of which being its tumbling motion. That got me to thinking, what exactly sets off a chaotic tumbling state in a body such as ‘Oumuamua? Many scientists believe the likely explanation is that ‘Oumuamua was struck by an object – possibly in its planetary system of origin, indeed many asteroids in our Solar System experience the same phenomenon and with the same explanation.

But why should ‘Oumuamua have left its natal planetary system in the first place? Possibly the collision was a cause of this, but I think that would be unlikely, more likely gravitational resonances or an encounter with a massive planet in its host planetary system was the cause, after all Jupiter is known to have done exactly this to comets in our own system.

But there is a BIG problem here and I shall endeavour to explain the logic below.

What happens when Jupiter ejects a body is that the body’s so-called hyperbolic excess (its speed reached at a great distance, in other words entering into interstellar space) is very small WITH RESPECT TO OUR OWN SOLAR SYSTEM.

Look at it this way, let’s say you throw a ball gently out of a moving train. It is clearly the case that, although the ball’s velocity relative to the train is small, relative to the ground that ball has a velocity which is almost precisely the velocity of the moving train, so anyone observing that ball on the ground would get a good idea of the velocity of the train by measuring the velocity of the ball.

This should also be the case for ‘Oumuamua, by measuring its velocity in interstellar space, we should be able to trace its velocity to its natal system. But therein lies a big mystery.

What we find is that ‘Oumuamua’s velocity in interstellar space was virtually zero – technically it was very close to the Local Standard of Rest (LSR), which is the mean velocity of all the stars in our vicinity as they rotate around our Galaxy’s centre. Going back to our train analogy, that means the train – or planetary system – it came from had almost zero velocity w.r.t. the LSR. What is the likelihood of that happening? My mind now is cast back to my time as a pupil at Stoke Park Comprehensive school where I impressed my chemistry teacher Dr Brooks with the following deduction.

We were studying what is known as the ‘Maxwell Distribution‘, this is what you get when you plot on the horizontal x-axis the speed of the molecules of a particular volume of gas and on the vertical axis the number of molecules in this volume which have this speed.

What one finds is that there is a peak speed, that is there is a MOST likely speed for a molecule and as the possible speeds increase, the number of molecules with these speeds reduce – in fact the graph decays and approaches zero to the right.

But what happens to the left of this peak in the curve – that is as the speed of the molecules decrease to zero?

What we find is that there is a similar decrease on the left side of the peak until the curve actually touches the horizontal axis, AT THE ORIGIN. Another way of looking at this is that the number of molecules with zero speed is actually zero. This is in line with the observation that the only way a gas could have ANY molecules with no speed is at minimum energy or ABSOLUTE ZERO, which is impossible, right?

Now let’s apply this to ‘Oumuamua’s system of origin which, as we have seem, had almost zero speed w.r.t. the LSR, and make the anaolgy of the speed of stars in the galaxy with the speed of molecules in a gas. A zero speed w.r.t the LSR for a star should actually be exceedingly unlikely, in precisely the way it is for molecules in a gas.

It seems the more you think about ‘Oumuamua the stranger – and more eldritch – it gets.

Adam Hibberd

I decided to attend Breakthrough Discuss this year.

But what could I bring to Breakthrough Discuss? It’s amazing how one’s delusions of grandeur are demolished wholesale when one encounters the truly BIG names in science. Jocelyn Bell Burnell, Roger Penrose, Martin Rees, etc, were all present and correct and that brought me down to Earth with a huge thud.

I guess a reality check is a big thing in a science conference of any kind, after all what can be more important to science than discovering the nature of reality?

But there is also a sanity check too and seeing two grown men arguing on stage over the latest topic in science, is always, ALWAYS an exceedingly tedious affair, especially in my experience when the issue is rather trivial. Fortunately, the organizers had left this to the end.

And can the nature of consciousness be expressed mathematically? Well, there was a whole presentation about mathematical consciousness. I’m afraid I found this particular talk hard to stomach. You see, to my knowledge there is no generally accepted scientific definition of what consciousness is exactly, and in my view this thing is so hard to pin down that it might be a red herring anyway.

On the contrary, there are loads of definitions of intelligence, all generally accepted, and this seems a much clearer line of enquiry to pursue than the arcane expression of consciousness. What’s more, the conclusion that any current AI software tool does not meet the requirement of consciousness seems to be a rather dubious claim. My opinion is like Turing’s test – in other words, if it waddles, swims and quacks like a duck then it is genuinely a duck, and this will be achieved in the very near future.

There was a lot of discussion about life in this Breakthrough Discuss and principally how it was created (biogenesis), how it can be identified (biosignatures) and what forms it might take (xenobiology). However, although interesting, there was no discussion of the PURPOSE of life (teleology).

That might sound a rather strange subject for a scientist to contemplate (and many of you might think it should be left to theologists), however I have found there is much to be gleaned by addressing the notion of life in this way.

So first ask yourself what is the ultimate goal of life? Does that concept have any meaning really? Stephen Jay Gould, among others, has warned of the dangers of conceiving life as a ladder of ascent, the notion that evolution creates things which are ‘better’ is a common misconception, and should be entirely rejected. It is all to do with adaptation into the current environment (whatever form that may take), which may change very rapidly with time, for example when a meteor strikes.

Yet on the other hand, if one looks at the human brain it is generally acknowledged as the most complex thing we know of in the Universe. Furthermore, what humanity is doing is creating even more sophisticated intellects than our own. True, Roger Penrose (who also talked at the conference) would claim these artificial things are not the same as us, yet as I have mentioned the nature of this irreconcilable difference he proposes, consciousness, may well be undefinable anyway.

So, what if the teleology of life is to produce super-intelligence? Why would it want to do that? And why would such a thing want to exist? In my view the answer to the first question is very much tied in with the second.

It seems to me that the reason intelligence exists is to know more about the Universe, since by knowing it can understand any dangers which may hurt it – and so avoid or counter them or, alternatively take advantage from any benefits. True – curiosity might kill the cat but nonetheless generally having this asset has greatly improved our lot. Whether it be agriculture, habitation, power generation, medical research, etc all this curiosity has been wonderful for humanity.

But what is the goal of all this acquisition of new knowledge? Is it the Fundamental Laws of Nature themselves? And would that be the reason why Artificial Intelligence would continue to exist and enquire?

I think I shall leave these questions unanswered for the moment as I feel I might have outstayed my welcome in a magazine quarterly to do with interstellar travel. However, this is what attending a conference, moreover, attending a science conference on the nature of life can do to you.

Adam Hibberd

Juno the wife and sister of Jupiter in Greek mythology, is also a spacecraft currently orbiting the planet Jupiter. The spacecraft suffered a major setback in 2016 when the main engine became unusable necessitating key alternative arrangements to be made to the Juno mission plan.

A paper by Avi Loeb, Adam Crowl and I will shortly come out – do look out for it – on the possibility of diverting the Jupiter probe from its current highly elliptical Jupiter orbit in order to execute a flyby of 3I/ATLAS. Juno’s current orbit has a perijove altitude of 73,400 km and apojove at 5.8 million km. Just as a reminder, the perijove altitude is the closest approach of Juno to Jupiter and apojove is the farthest point.

This highly eccentric orbit has various advantages should Juno wish to escape Jupiter’s pull, in that the extra velocity need at perijove to perform this feat would only be a few 100 m/s, it seems that Juno is teetering on the brink of escape, and only needs a tiny nudge to do so.

This assertion however is not quite correct in the case of 3I/ATLAS due to a problem with Juno’s orbital plane (to be precise its Longitude of Ascending Node, LOAN). It turns out not to be at a good angle for 3I/ATLAS missions.

Let’s examine this object as a target then. 3I/ATLAS, the third interstellar object to be discovered in our Solar System, will actually get quite close and personal to Jupiter on 16 March 2026, as can be seen on the plot below. Could Juno intercept this and provide invaluable data for scientists on Earth?

Let us assume that there IS sufficient DeltaV for Juno to undertake such an intercept, but how much DeltaV would be needed, to wit, what is the lowest possible DeltaV needed from the engines?

Below is the colour contour plot which provides precisely this information, and assuming that the path to 3I/ATLAS is a direct one without any intervening impulses before the target is intercepted.

Bear in mind, in a final Thelma and Louise moment, the spacecraft is planned to plunge into Jupiter’s atmosphere towards the end of September this year. This is a shame because funding for the Juno mission beyond this point is simply not available (even though significant science data could still be returned from extending the mission). There’s plenty of life left yet in the old bird.

It seems from the above contour plot that a well timed DeltaV around mid-August, or alternatively early September of 2025 would enable an intercept with 3I/ATLAS around the time of its closest approach to Jupiter, with the single DeltaV for reaching 3I/ATLAS being executed at a magnitude of 3.3 km/s. But is there an alternative lower DeltaV solution?

The answer to this question is a resounding yes, that is by conducting what is known as a Jupiter Oberth Manoeuvre (JOM). For a JOM, first of all an adjustment is necessary to line up the orbital plane of Juno to enable it to reach 3I/ATLAS at the appropriate moment, and secondly another impulsive DeltaV is applied with a low perijove to slingshot the spacecraft to the target. A table of this is provided below.

Observe that the overall DeltaV amounts to 2.1574 + 0.5181 = 2.6755 km/s, which is a few hundred metres per second lower than the direct method.

Given the state of Juno’s main engine, would this intercept be pracitical? I am merely a humble astrodynamicist and the key-players for this NASA mission are in a far better position to make the call on this.

Please look out for the preprint on arXiv.

Adam Hibberd

I have been slogging away at the usual old astrodynamics which I seem to have made my particular field of expertise, and in the process receiving some degree of flack from certain parties. I do this not for the money – clearly since I’m a lowly volunteer – but for the sheer fun of it, and it so happens on this occasion the work I’m doing is quite important also.

Is it indeed possible for the Juno spacecraft, now orbiting Jupiter to come closer to the 3rd interstellar object to be discovered, 3I/ATLAS?

The first step was to find the possible intercept opportunities using my own software development Optimum Interplanetary Trajectory Software (OITS), and it was serendipitous that my colleagues, Avi Loeb, Adam Crowl, with me leading on the celestial mechanics side, had embarked on this course since it turned out the date of DeltaV application for Juno to intercept 3I/ATLAS at its closest approach (in March 2026) was as soon as mid-August or alternatively mid-September of this year.

So surprised we were at these results, we decided to publish a paper and notify the NASA personnel responsible for the Juno mission, asap.

Having achieved this aim quite expeditiously in the end, we could then go about honing the research down to the more salient question, of how close might Juno be able to get to 3I/ATLAS GIVEN IT MAY NOT BE ABLE TO DELIVER the required DeltaV for an exact intercept?

To this end I developed some REBOUND software for the investigations, which also exploited the NASA JPL NAIF toolset known as SPICE as well as the NLP solver NOMAD. Go here to look at the latest version of the paper.

Note that this study assumed one application of DeltaV only and furthermore, examined two launch windows for reaching 3I/ATLAS, in mid-August and mid-September. I provide the results below.

Once NASA has provided the necessary information, we shall then be able to move forward and investigate more complicated scenarios, such as the multiple-impulse case, which adds significantly to the NOMAD solution time and increases the likelihood of convergence to local optima.

For the moment the above plots are hugely encouraging since, as we can see, that for as little as 5.4% of the initial propellant mass, Juno could quite easily get within 27 million km of the target.

Adam Hibberd

Having demonstrated yesterday that a reasonably low DeltaV (velocity increment) applied by the Juno’s engine could achieve a significantly closer approach to 3I/ATLAS than would otherwise be the case if Juno stayed in its current Jupiter orbit, surely that would be the end of the matter?

The answer is ‘not quite’, since this was a ‘single impulse’ scenario and assumed only a one-off application of DeltaV to heave the probe closer to the target. This clearly neglected the possibility of multiple impulses, which could well demand a much smaller overall DeltaV budget though still achieve the same desired goal.

As already explained in my previous blog here, further impulses add significantly to the overall complexity of the problem, and so slows the convergence time of the Non-Linear Problem (NLP) solver, in this case NOMAD. However I determined to investgate the double impulse option using a modified version of the REBOUND software I developed for the single impulse case, and the results were forthcoming after a couple or so days of execution.

See below for the pertinent plots extracted from the revised paper (which is here btw).

We see from the first plot that for 3I/ATLAS distances of less than say 25 million km, there is a significant saving in required propellant as compared with the single impulse case, with typically 50% less propellant being required.

This incredible finding is offset to some extent by the fact that for distances greater than 25 million km, where very little propellant is needed, the saving from the additional impulse becomes negligble and with reducing DeltaV requirement, the double impulse merges into the single impulse solution, as we see from the second plot above.

Adam Hibberd

3I/ATLAS, the interstellar object, is in the Solar System and making its presence known, not only to astronomers but also to the world’s media. My paper with Avi Loeb and Adam Crowl examined the hypothesis that 3I/ATLAS might be alien technology, go here. I confess this paper has been somewhat of a hit!

Though controversial, perhaps, nevertheless I invite you to read it without the prejudice which might have formed as a result of representations of it, or should I say misrepresentations of it, from social media coverage.

Meanwhile I muddle on with my research, this time on the various challenges of mounting a spacecraft mission to this strange object.

You may already be aware, since I have made it quite clear on previous blog posts, here for example, that a direct mission to 3I/ATLAS is quite impossible, since it was discovered too late. Just to repeat the logic, look at the Figure below which is the relevant ‘Pork Chop’ plot in question, do read the aforementioned post for more detail.

With this revelation, is there any way at all possible a spacecraft could be sent to intercept this object? Possibly not directly, but indirectly, using a combination of gravity assists (GAs) for example?

So enters the stage my wonderful software OITS (Optimum Interplanetary Trajectory Software), designed specifically to model interplanetary spacecraft GAs and also OBERTH MANOEUVRES.

As a reminder the fastest speed an object travels when it is orbiting a hugely more massive object, is at the PERIAPSIS point, or in other words at the closest approach it makes to this massive object. This means given a certain DeltaV capability of the spacecraft (i.e. a velocity increment available from an onboard propulsion system), then to MAXIMISE the change in kinetic energy of the spacecraft, this available thrust should all be delivered at this periapsis point. This will slingshot the spacecraft away at huge speed from the aforementioned massive body, and onwards to catch the target. Go to my animation here to demonstrate the Solar Oberth Effect, or look at the video below.

Now, it may not have escaped your notice that the most massive body in our Solar System is the Sun, and so one should expect a SOLAR OBERTH MANOEUVRE to be precisely the optimal trajectory of choice to enable a spacecraft to catch up with the object, in this case 3I/ATLAS, in minimum time. Note also that by the time of launch of the spacecraft, 3I/ATLAS will be receding rapidly from the Sun at a huge speed upwards of 58 km/s, so this is a question of catch-up as is invariably the case for Oberth Manoeuvres.

My software was designed so that it could model Solar Oberth Manoeuvres, so look at the figure below where I have examined a Solar Oberth to 3I/ATLAS in some depth.

It turns out that the next BIG opportunity for a Solar Oberth will be with a launch on 26th September 2025, which is far too soon to be of any practical use.

Yet nonetheless these results are still informative as they should also hold for future Solar Oberth trajectories, so beyond that 26th September 2025 deadline. Solar Oberths have a 12 year cycle of launch windows, since they involve a passage to Jupiter, which happens to realign with the Sun and 3I/ATLAS every 12 years, this being Jupiter’s orbital period.

We find in the figure above that the optimal distance from the Sun’s centre for a Solar Oberth is at about 8.5 Solar Radii (as a reminder, for ‘Oumuamua it was 6 Solar Radii). This perihelion distance requires least DeltaV at the Oberth to catch up with 3I/ATLAS, eventually arriving in the space of 30-odd years from launch. This is optimal from purely an ASTRODYNAMICAL point of view.

Nonetheless even at this minimum DeltaV option, the Solar Oberth Manoeuvre DeltaV is quite a stretch for a chemical propulsion system, and would require at least 2 stages, more likely 3 stages to deliver it.

Scientia ad Sidera!

Adam Hibberd

Just trying to figure whether I’ve been conned or not !!!!

When you are an academic (yes, yes I know, that isn’t me), then that means you are more intelligent than average (no comment here please, OK?), and so that means you are less likely to be gullibly drawn in by some fraudulent or predatory scam-artist, right?

Well, as most of you are all-too-aware, intelligence and common-sense are not necessarily related and possibly not even correlated in the mathematical sense, because intelligent people can make extremely stoopid gaffs, OK? Indeed there may even be a significant anticorrelation, but I shan’t go into the reason for that.

One such gaff is to fall for the old trick of attending a fake conference. There must be loads of phishing emails sent out to authors of science papers around the world, inviting them to attend a conference abroad, and what’s more these scientists would be promoted to a luminary status at the conference as an expert in their field, all for the rather insignificant fee of £3,500 etc, etc.

Tosh? To you and me clearly yes, but look at it from a scientist’s point of view! Fancy the opportunity to just do what you love to do, which is talking about your particular expertise for ages and ages, to an interested and attentive audience (unlike your friends and family who are f*ckin’ tired of all this nonsense), with travel, accommodation and dining all covered by the cost. Very tempting indeed, obvious no-brainer, yes?

It’s all fraudulent of course.

So there I was, quite confident in the knowledge that I was now a past master at detecting such potential swindles when one day I happened to find an email in my inbox.

The email was from a guy called Hussain Ayed, founder of acaudio, inviting me to upload an audio of me explaining my research to a potential audience of who-knows-how-many online lay-persons and scienitists. I checked out the link provided, found it all looked bona-fide and dutifully started to record my voice using the online record facility as opposed to the upload audio file option.

After God-knows how many attempts, I managed to answer in quite good detail all the questions posed and submitted my responses to the site. But now after two days these recordings still have NOT surfaced on the website I was given a link to.

On top of that when I re-inspected the original email, what did I see after the founder’s name? “THE KNOW SHOW”.

Needless to say I didn’t pay a jot of money to this guy, but I’m just beginning to wonder, what have I DONE exactly?

The good news is that Hussain Ayed and his company acaudio have a significant footprint on the web, with LinkedIn profiles, etc, but I still feel that something is simply not right here – what has happened to those recordings actually?

Oh well, nevermind. You win some and you lose some.

Adam Hibberd

When you have a surprise, uninvited visitor gatecrash your party, you are liable to treat them cautiously at first and then after a visual appraisal reveals they are worthy of acceptance, maybe curiosity will strike and you may start asking questions to find out more about them. You may by the end of this social interaction, and before the visitor has left, have discovered enough about the individual to form a fairly accurate notion of who they are and what they are like.

Well, the latest, and third, gatecrasher to our abode is a celestial body, an interstellar object (ISO) to be exact, from somewhere else in our Galaxy, the Milky Way. Furthermore, unlike all other objects we have observed orbiting the Sun (apart from the preceding 2 ISOs of course), it does NOT actually belong here and originated from some other System a long time ago, 7 billion years  is one estimate, considerably older than our Solar System.

It was discovered on 1^st July 2025 and later named 3I/ATLAS, since contrary to my expectations, it was not discovered by the recently operational Vera C. Rubin Telescope, but instead ATLAS – the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, though useful precovery images were subsequently found in the Rubin data archive a full month before 3I/ATLAS was discovered, and also even prior to this, images further back were taken by the TESS space telescope.

Now when I received the news of the arrival of this ISO, I was distinctly unenthusiastic because I was still in the process of conducting research into so-called ‘Dark Comets’ and what they could be, and this thing was an unwelcome distraction. However, an acquaintance of mine who works with ISEC (the International Space Elevator Consortium) expressed surprise that I had not paid more attention to this object, especially in the context of investigating missions to it, and was unimpressed with the work I had instead been prioritizing.

Furthermore, news about the object was beginning to flood in from a myriad of sources and various connections of mine, in particular Marshall Eubanks and Avi Loeb. For instance, it was quite clear early on, according to Avi, that he thought this was a very strange phenomenon, since despite its brightness, there was no spectroscopic signature for the presence of volatiles (such as water or ammonia, carbon dioxide and the like), which would point to it being a comet. This lack of evidence would indicate the calculated size for 3I/ATLAS, ~20 km, was not a result of a cometary coma, but that it genuinely WAS indeed that big – an asteroid in other words – 2 orders of magnitude larger than the previous 2 observed ISOs. Such a gargantuan object should only happen very rarely compared to 1I/’Oumuamua type objects, so how come we had observed one so soon after 1I/’Oumuamua, there should be millions of ‘Oumuamuas before even one 3I/ATLAS?

It so happens that I was, at the time, in regular touch with Adam Crowl on Facebook, where the huge distance between he in Brisbane and me in Coventry was – so-it-appeared – magically nullified as we were able to discuss instantaneously the strangeness of 3I/ATLAS as though we were in the same room.

It was as a result of one such conversation that I decided to do some work on the astrodynamics of 3I/ATLAS, the most obvious approach being to consider the feasibility of missions from Earth to 3I/ATLAS. Having largely performed this analysis, I concluded that missions to 3I/ATLAS were simply out-of-the-question, either direct routes, or indirect. It was only later that it suddenly occurred to me – why not address the reverse route? – i.e. what would it take for 3I/ATLAS to intercept the Earth? That’s a simple reversal of calculations that OITS was designed to accommodate very easily, and the results were extremely illuminating. The relative ease of an intercept of Earth, for example, seemed initially inconsequential, but with further deliberation, the value of this research eventually dawned on me – what if 3I/ATLAS WAS alien tech, in precisely the way Avi had argued? – then these results showed how little effort would be needed for a probe – or weapon – sent from 3I/ATLAS to intercept Earth.

In a moment of gay abandon, I decided to share this plot with Avi Loeb and to my surprise – though in retrospect why should I have been? – he was extremely accepting of the premise that this object could be alien technology and suggested collaborating on a paper on the subject. His decision was no-doubt partly informed by the fact that he had suggested in a previous paper (here) that the rareness of such a large object could well be explained if it had been directed on its path by alien intelligence. In view of my previous conversation with Adam C., I mooted that he be a co-author and so a very contentious research paper was born.

Someone had to write the skeleton, and since I clearly had more time and also the necessary latex skills (latex is a kind of language used by scientists for neat and tidy science paper generation), I came up with the initial draft which then the other two contributed to. The paper can be found here.

I shan’t go into a detailed description of how the paper was received by the science community as most readers will be aware of this. It was hardly unpredictable that it would be entirely misrepresented and for that matter completely misunderstood by certain social media commentators. Arguments surfaced such as it ‘claimed 3I MUST be alien technology because….’ This latter was largely typical of the level of debate concerning the research and a wholly misleading summary of the paper, since we had ‘claimed’ nothing of the sort. We HAD ‘claimed’ that the object was most likely a comet, and we had only ‘hypothesised’ otherwise, a stark and clear fact which was almost entirely overlooked by most of the negative social media commentary.

 I’ve reached an age when I get a wee bit tired of the prejudice and extremist nonsense pedalled by so many critics of papers such as ours. The reason for this is that many, many advances in science research have been at the peripheral of what has at the time been considered acceptable, mainstream and orthodox scientific dogma, and although the paper was probably incorrect in its hypothesis (that remains to be seen), nevertheless surely we should have learned by this time of the dangers of prematurely casting out what might be considered on the fringe of science? – we should not throw out the baby with the bath water.

Email conversations between Avi, Adam C. and I then tended towards the subject of missions, and the Juno probe soon became dominant in our thinking. Adam C. did some calculations which showed that at perijove (closest it gets to Jupiter), Juno was teetering on brink of Jupiter escape, with a velocity kick of only a few hundreds of metres per second necessary to send the probe on a course out of the Jovian system. The relevance of this fact was that ‘The Object’ (as Adam C. had christened it) would come close to Jupiter on March 16^th 2026 – in fact within 0.36 au of the planet, becoming a possible target for the Juno spacecraft as the mission could be repurposed to probe this ISO.

When I used OITS to investgate Juno missions to 3I/ATLAS, two windows of opportunity presented themselves: in mid-August and in mid-September of 2025. These windows were so soon, this immediately sent alarm bells ringing and we contacted NASA immediately, setting in motion the publication of the preprint on arXiv, whilst I continued on with research to answer the question :’how close could Juno actually get?’

It hardly surprised me that in the meantime a certain unmentioned scientist who had been so cynical of the first paper, then attacked the second paper, taking my quite legitimate, though admittedly politically naïve, answer to a question of his on social media and then parading it in front of his many followers and prefacing it with a sarcastic ‘FWIW’ (For What It’s Worth). I have been reassured by one of my colleagues that this particular individual tended to be much more ‘nuanced’ in a personal conversation he had engaged him in at a science conference and only seemed to reserve this hostile manipulation to his activity on social media. I confess to be distinctly unimpressed by this attempt at an excuse.

Nevertheless I continued on with my relentless battle against my mental health condition and eventually the required results necessary to complete the paper (now here) were forthcoming, showing that Juno could get significantly closer to 3I/ATLAS with only 5.4% propellant remaining in the tank.

It still remains to be seen whether NASA believe they can restart the Juno engine, and even if it can, how much propellant might be left in the tanks. However one should be mindful that this probe was slated for termination by the end of September anyhow, with a kamikaze plunge into Jupiter’s atmosphere, so instead maybe a slightly perilous manoeuvre, and an extension of its mission would be worth the risk?

So all-in-all an exciting few weeks for me personally as well as the scientific community as a whole. Weeks where I learned the humility of being a scientist – let the facts speak for themselves – and never, EVER allow yourself to introduce your own deeply prejudiced perspective into someone else’s motives. My motive as a scientist is always, ALWAYS to find the truth and until that truth is found, hypothesis (based on evidence) but possibly not wild speculation (based on no evidence) should be encouraged and NOT scorned.

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

• Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
• Because it will help you focus your own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

• Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
• What topics do you think you’ll write about?
• Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
• If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

• Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
• Because it will help you focus your own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

• Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
• What topics do you think you’ll write about?
• Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
• If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

• Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
• Because it will help you focus your own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

• Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
• What topics do you think you’ll write about?
• Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
• If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.