oumuamua: mysterious coat of carbon-rich gunk hiding an icy heart

first alien probe of the space age reaches us and all the impressive assemblage of telescopes and sensors on planet earth are asleep on the job and only get a half decent shot of it. Typical.

https://i.imgur.com/cmmAhsI.jpg

tbf they didn't say it's the whole ship, just a wing mirror

There was a fun thread on Twitter a few days ago linking it to the Trump ‘space force’ announcement, the mysterious closure of a major US observatory by the FBI, several key satellite telescopes going ‘offline’ at the same time. It’s the kind of good old-fashioned conspiracy theory I have been missing.

I googled the FBI observatory thing.. supposedly it was a janitor looking at porn what caused all the ruckus. BUT THAT'S A VERY CONVENIENT EXCUSE amirite conspiracy friends?

sometimes a cigar-shaped alien asteroid is just a

that janitor's name was Faux Mullder

fucks boulders morelike

i don't generally read them but i just realised i am pathologically unable to delete any rando email that comes my way which contains the words ANCIENT ALIENS (usually but not always from pinterest).

JUST IN CASE i guess

also this reminds me that whenever i see some bozo (or it may be not entirely a bozo) with the given job description "theorist", the phrase that comes unbidden into my head is "Ancient Alien Theorists argue that… "

cultural theorists drive like this, ancient alien theorists etc

it's Mr. Hankey from South Park!

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/cosmic-radio-waves-space-located-light-years-milky-way-csiro-telescope-space-a8978096.html

ancient alien theorists have bad hair

counterpoint: i’m bald

I call that bad hair.

the only winning move is not to play

https://juicyecumenism.com/wp-content/uploads/image01-3.jpg

I got zugzwanged by badld genes as well, but at least looking like shit all the time gives you one less thing to worry about :p

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/061/297/nickcage.jpeg?1279885944

xp because of the zugzwang...

i'm being told poseidon was an extra-terrestrial bcz the sea is not the land

(this ep is abt undersea aliens)

aside from being the most enraging talking head in history (and doing brexit), von daniken favours the term "woman-girl", as in "poseidon found a young woman-girl and he took this woman-girl and made her pregnant"

the other primary theorist sounds exactly like loyd grossman

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C24GzKeXgAAo2qr?format=jpg&name=large

uncannily like Nicolas "bird hair" Cage above

i dremt it was piloted by octopuses hunting for their lost cousins and when they saw their plight down here on earth and the toxic pickle this planet is in they turned round to go get reinforcements and also cleaning materials

i’ve recently come around to thinking that straight-up benevolent alien intervention might be the only hope we have left so i endorse this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOgpnidwPiQ

we don't deserve them (except as our pitiless overlords)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AG6JebW63f4

holy christ that's terrifying

this crossover with the d'awwwctopus thread pleases me

hadrian, ilx is an octopus-positive space fyi

^^ was gonna say

i like the way the d'awwwctopus unscrews the lid and then just settles comfortably back into the jar: all the time in the world, reinforcements (and cleaning materials) are on the way

also it reminds me of what nietzsche said abt kant, except in this instance it's good not bad (no need to hurry out into overlordship)

can't wait to see how sanguine y'all are about your cthulhoid conquerors once they begin exsanguinating u

enh, i've had a good run tbh, i'm ready

OL OTM hope you all enjoy the nerve toxins after cutey's radula has slowly drilled a hole into your sternum

I'll be well inland

i know octo is 8 but what's a pus

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/Stomp.gif

It's very much like a foot but I believe it refers more specifically to the foot-like appendage of a species which seeks to violently supplant the human race. Hope that helps!

but what if a species with eight vaginas is discovered, what the hell do you call that

slipknot

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0372/6877/products/DT1851_dd555196-2995-463c-8785-f0bf04209fa1_2000x.jpg

https://media.giphy.com/media/fLmiz1Ogta3bbOdBXx/giphy.gif

cant wait for avi so-called loeb's *next* highly original book == "thread of dinosaurs gazing hapless at the oncoming meteor"

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/interstellar-visitor-found-to-be-unlike-a-comet-or-an-asteroid

(old article, but I don't think it was linked before)

close but no cigar

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/mar/18/space-oddity-oumuamua-probably-shard-of-pluto-like-world-scientists-say

poor Pluto - even less of not a planet anymore.

oh "Pluto-like"

i am as god made me, sir (a small object estimated to be between 100 and 1,000 metres (300 and 3,000 ft) long, with its width and thickness both estimated between 35 and 167 metres (115 and 548 ft))

I for one welcome Amaterasu, "one of the highest-energy cosmic rays ever detected".

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/nov/24/amaterasu-extremely-high-energy-particle-detected-falling-to-earth

This article was amended on 24 November 2023 to clarify some of the wording, based on agency copy, that was used in an earlier version regarding the speed of particles.

that copy:

Some charged particles in the air shower travel faster than the speed of light, producing a type of electromagnetic radiation that can be detected by specialised instruments.

idk maybe it's technically correct (mutters something about group velocity or c in a vacuum)

The Amaterasu particle has an energy exceeding 240 exa-electron volts (EeV), millions of times more than particles produced in the Large Hadron Collider, the most powerful accelerator ever built, and equivalent to the energy of a golf ball travelling at 95mph.

I would not want to be in its way, but a 95mph golf ball does not seem that cosmically terrifying?

what if that golf ball actually went through your brain?

"In September 2011, it was reported, in a major release by CERN, that a tau neutrino had traveled faster than the speed of light; however, later updates from CERN on the OPERA experiment indicate that the faster-than-light readings were due to a faulty element of the experiment's fibre optic timing system.[12]"

it aint over till…

there he is (avi so-called loeb)

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:myqic77tkmdhmaufgkvj43hr/bafkreiaaeozu3pprjamfowgooewxjhnhelx72rn4lrvpy2hx3n7mqezvna@jpeg

bring back oumuamua

weird gray space dong and name of my wifi network

brb, changing my name to otm