Tootfinder

3I/ATLAS: In Search of the Witnesses to Its Voyage
X. P\'erez-Couto, S. Torres, E. Villaver, A. J. Mustill, M. Manteiga
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.07678 https://

3I/ATLAS: In Search of the Witnesses to Its Voyage
3I/ATLAS is the third interstellar object discovered to date, following 1I/'Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov. Its unusually high excess velocity and active cometary nature make it a key probe of the Galactic population of icy planetesimals. Understanding its origin requires tracing its past trajectory through the Galaxy and assessing the possible role of stellar encounters, both as a potential origin and a perturber to its orbit. We integrated the orbit of 3I/ATLAS backward in time for 10 Myr, together …

Quantitative Mapping of the Loeb Scale
Oem Trivedi, Abraham Loeb
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.06253 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2509.06253

Quantitative Mapping of the Loeb Scale
The recent discovery of a third interstellar object (ISO) 3I/ATLAS, following 1I/`Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov, has raised questions about the nature and origin of these enigmatic objects. With the Vera C. Rubin Observatory expected to discover dozens of new ISOs over the next decade, it is timely to use a classification scheme for their nature in the context of the recently proposed Loeb scale. Here, we provide a formalism for ranking ISOs quantitatively on the Loeb Scale in analogy to Sagan's form…

$K$-Theory of Adelic and Rational Group $C^*$-algebras via Generalized Winding Numbers
Wenqing Wu, Hang Wang
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.00390 https://arxiv…

$K$-Theory of Adelic and Rational Group $C^*$-algebras via Generalized Winding Numbers
We take the following approach to analyze homotopy equivalence in periodic adelic functions. First, we introduce the concept of pre-periodic functions and define their homotopy invariant through the construction of a generalized winding number. Subsequently, we establish a fundamental correspondence between periodic adelic functions and pre-periodic functions. By extending the generalized winding number to periodic adelic functions, we demonstrate that this invariant completely characterizes ho…

Turns out that what hit flight #UA1093 was most likely a balloon from https://windbornesystems.com - this was brought up first in the thread https://x.com/vk5qi/status/1980386581497409891 and now the company confirms that it's a very strong possibility: https://x.com/johndeanl/status/1980462264974209292. See also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZzbS30xdjM for a short video about the company and how it's filling the atmosphere with long-duration balloons carrying weather sensors. They had just been hailed as one of the best inventions of 2025: https://time.com/collections/best-inventions-2025/7318250/windborne-systems-atlas/ ...