(YouTube)  The 12th Anomaly: 3I/ATLAS Jets Stay Straight Across a Million Kilometers. Quoting,

In this in-depth breakdown, Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb walks us through why these tightly collimated jets should be smeared, curved, or spiraled—but instead stay fixed in orientation across distances so large they defy natural explanation. Loeb examines every possibility, from sunlight-triggered outgassing and fragmented debris trails to exotic ice pockets and rotational changes… and why none fully account for what the latest post-perihelion images show.

Disclaimer: I am torn between the  need to conceal the truth from a humanity who Can’t Handle the Truth, and the chance to go  viral on the shoulders of this melting cosmic snowman. I made this choice once before, in Groupon Planetary Flying Saucer Cruises, and nobody seemed to believe me, so what the hell. But first I’ll introduce you to the explanation devised by my friends in a secret government agency, PDA — the Plausible Denial Agency, known to most of you as MIB.

On the cosmic scale of things, 3I/Atlas is so small that the most powerful telescopes on earth or in space cannot produce an image of it. All they can see is the cloud around it. If there were no cloud, if the only thing present were the small massive body, then the telescope would produce a well known artifact known as the Airy disk. But the cloud is much larger, replacing the Airy disk with a bright blue-green glowing smudge. The glow is the result of electrons in the cloud,  separated from atoms by interaction with high energy particles from the sun. When an electron finds an atom to  recombine with, a photon, a  quanta of light is emitted. You can see for yourself at the local pizzeria, if it still has a “neon-argon-krypton” sign in the window.

Loeb points to “jets” in images taken by amateur astronomers as anomalies. There are no jets. At least one of the instruments is a Rowe-Ackermann-Schmidt astrograph, RASA, manufactured by Celestron Corporation. This is a low magnification, wide field instrument inappropriate for photography of such a tiny object. Pushed beyond its limits, the “jets” are the result of imperfections in the glass.

All visual telescopes incorporate glass. Amateur instruments are made of nothing else. The manufacture of optical glass remains one of the great trade secrets, of the few companies, Corning, Schott, Zeiss, Hoya, Ohara et al. It can take years to complete manufacture of a single crucible. So difficult is perfection that imperfections are tolerated with the reward  of esoteric qualities.

A long time is spent simply waiting for the glass to cool. If perfection is obtained, the cooled glass will be in a perfectly annealed state. If it is not, internal forces, push-pull, compress/stretch remain in the glass. These change the course of light through a lens made from this glass, or a mirror made of glass. One could remelt the glass and wait a few more years, but that costs money.

Even if perfect glass is delivered to the telescope maker, strain can occur when the optics are assembled. This is called “pinch”, which occurs when the lens or mirror is gripped too tightly. The RASA design is vulnerable to a second type of strain. The entire camera assembly is supported by the front lens, a large piece of glass known as the Schmidt corrector.  This weight creates strain. The corrector is vulnerable to yet a third form of strain, the result of the special process invented by Celestron to make them.

The “jets” are strain artifacts of the telescopes, nothing more.

Don’t believe me? Alright, here’s the real skinny. During a previous interstellar encounter, in 1987, the aliens got to Earth, and the result wasn’t pretty. In fact it was in pretty bad taste.  Carefully documented by a film crew in the wrong place at the wrong time, it caused the formation of MIB–APD, and a host of other black budget programs. The leaked documentary was disguised by APD. You can see the result here:

***Bad Taste***

 

I wonder what’s on the dinner menu tonight?