RE: Space rock or Mothership - AI in your opinion what evidence do we have that what we are witnessing is truly happening in real time, and not a signal or image from 25,000, 10,000, or even more years in the past
My Question: There are reports of a cosmic visitor, though its nature remains unclear—whether a mothership or mere space debris. As Prof. Loeb notes, we believe we are watching the structure in real time, its visibility shaped by solar activity.
Yet, if the object were artificial, we must also allow for the possibility that it could cloak itself, making our detection less a matter of technology than of permission from its occupants. Still, one question remains : what evidence do we have that what we are witnessing is truly happening in real time, and not a signal or image from 25,000, 10,000, or even more years in the past?
AI :
That’s a sharp question — and it cuts right into the heart of astrophysics.
Here’s my take:
The default assumption in astronomy is that everything we see in space is light delayed by distance. A star 10,000 light years away shows us what it looked like 10,000 years ago. So, unless the “cosmic visitor” is within our own solar system, we are not observing it in real time at all — we’re watching a kind of time capsule.
Prof. Loeb’s claim about “real-time” monitoring hinges on the idea that the object is close enough (on the scale of astronomical distances) that the delay is negligible — minutes or hours rather than millennia. For example, sunlight takes about 8 minutes to reach us; if the visitor were at a similar distance, our observation could meaningfully track its interaction with solar activity.
As for evidence:
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Trajectory and parallax – If its position shifts measurably against the background of stars over days or weeks, that suggests proximity.
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Brightness and spectrum variability – If its light changes in sync with solar events, that points to near-real-time influence.
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Radar or radio echoes – If we can bounce signals off it and receive returns, that confirms closeness and real-time observation.
But — if it were truly artificial and equipped with cloaking or signal manipulation, then the entire question changes.
Our observations could be curated, and “real time” might be exactly what its occupants want us to perceive.
So the honest answer is: we only have evidence of real-time observation if the object is local (solar system scale) and responds detectably to solar dynamics. Otherwise, we’re always looking into the past — sometimes tens of thousands of years deep.
Straight scientific answer:
We only see objects in space as they were when their light left them. If something is 10,000 light years away, we are observing it as it was 10,000 years ago, not as it is today. The only way we could be observing a “cosmic visitor” in real time is if it is located within our solar system, where the light-travel time is measured in minutes or hours rather than millennia.
Evidence that would confirm near-real-time observation includes:
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Proximity measurements — If the object’s position can be triangulated using parallax or orbital tracking, and it shows motion relative to nearby stars, that indicates it is local.
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Interaction with solar activity — If the object’s brightness or spectrum changes in direct correlation with solar flares or solar wind, that strongly suggests it is close enough to be affected in real time.
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Radar or radio reflection — If signals transmitted from Earth can bounce back from the object, the round-trip time of the echo would provide a direct measurement of distance and confirm that we are observing it as it is “now.”
Without such evidence, any structure observed farther out would, by definition, be seen as it was thousands or even millions of years ago, not in the present moment.
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