This Dark Comet Could Be A Spacecraft

Added: 2026-06-03

[00:00:04]Dark comets are a proposed class of curious hybrids between comets and asteroids. These objects show significant non-gravitational accelerations, yet they exhibit absolutely no sign of cometary outgassing in the form of a coma or tail. The first recognized interstellar object, Oumuamua, showed these features and was suggested to belong to this class in a recent mainstream publication.

[00:00:36]However, based on its inferred flat shape and non-gravitational acceleration, I argued in a much earlier publication that Oumuamua might have been technological in origin.

[00:00:50]The dark comet association of Oumuamua and similar solar system objects was the mainstream response to my non-traditional suggestion. A year ago, I wrote a paper with my postdoc, Richard Cloete, suggesting that the dark comet labeled 2005 VL1 might be the Venera 2 spacecraft, a failed Soviet mission to Venus launched in November 1965.

[00:01:21]Another member of the proposed class of dark comets in the solar system is 1998 KY26.

[00:01:29]The nature of 1998 KY26 is not just an academic question.

[00:01:35]The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, JAXA, plans to land the spacecraft Hayabusa 2 on this object in July 2031.

[00:01:47]In its original mission, Hayabusa 2 explored the 900-m diameter asteroid 162173 Ryugu in 2018, returning asteroid samples to Earth in 2020.

[00:02:02]With fuel remaining, the spacecraft was sent on an extended mission until 2031, when it is set to encounter 1998 KY26.

[00:02:14]This will be the first time a space mission encounters a tiny object on the size scale of 10 m.

[00:02:22]Mainstream astronomers hope that this landing will reveal the nature of outgassing from a dark comet.

[00:02:31]1998 KY26 was observed by a number of ground-based telescopes to support the preparation of the Hayabusa 2 mission, and the results were reported in a 2025 Nature Communication paper.

[00:02:46]Interestingly, this so-called dark comet was observed to be shiny with a very high reflectance albedo of 0.52 plus or minus 0.08.

[00:03:00]Its inferred size of 11 plus or minus 2 m is comparable to that of a spacecraft.

[00:03:08]In addition, it exhibits an exceedingly short rotation period of 5.3516 plus or minus 0.0001 minutes, which implies a sturdy monolithic object. A rubble-pile asteroid would break up under the associated centrifugal force.

[00:03:30]In a new paper that I just co-authored with the brilliant Adam Hibberd, Adam Crowl, and Carlos Soleá, we present supporting evidence that 1998 KY26 could be technological in origin.

[00:03:46]In particular, we identified it as potentially a relic of a historical Russian mission to Mars, the Phobos 1 probe, which suffered a failure 2 months after the launch in July 1988 due to upload of a faulty command.

[00:04:04]Our new paper shows that that two propulsive velocity thrusts, delta v's, combined at 1.9 km/s.

[00:04:14]The first just after loss of mission and the second in May 1996 allowed the orbits and phases of the two bodies to align with an arbitrarily low separation in velocity position space.

[00:04:30]There is also evidence that 1.9 km/s was within the performance envelope of Phobos 1, which had a powerful nitric acid and amine-based autonomous thruster for Mars orbital insertion.

[00:04:47]Our analysis cannot unequivocally identify that 1998 KY26 is definitely the Phobos 1 probe.

[00:04:56]Nevertheless, we have shown quantitatively that one the Phobos 1 and 1998 KY26 orbits are similar.

[00:05:06]The two orbits converge and are statistically compatible given the uncertainty in the orbit of 1998 KY26, which is tightly constrained due to the existence of over 230 observations of this dark comet.

[00:05:24]Two, the difference between these two orbits is compatible energetically with the overall velocity thrust, delta v, envelope available to Phobos 1.

[00:05:37]Three, there is a historical record in support of the hypothesis that a propulsive velocity thrust, delta v, was delivered shortly after loss of mission.

[00:05:49]Four, the Phobos 1 mission was lost early on in the probe's transit to Mars, enabling a large delta V capability.

[00:05:59]Five, the observational data on the physical properties of the dark comet 1998 KY26 support the association with Phobos 1.

[00:06:10]This includes the measured small size, high albedo, and an unusually large spin, which favors a sturdy object over a rubble pile asteroid.

[00:06:23]Six, the dark comet appears to be quite elongated based on changes in its apparent magnitude as expected for Phobos 1.

[00:06:34]Gladly, the verdict on our association of the dark comet 1998 KY26 with the spacecraft Phobos 1 will be indisputable once JAXA's Hayabusa 2 mission gets close to it.

[00:06:49]The beauty of science is that hypotheses can be tested experimentally beyond any reasonable doubt.

[00:06:57]This is why the Vatican acknowledged publicly in 1992, as reported here, that Galileo Galilei was right and the sun is not moving around the Earth as they claimed for centuries.

[00:07:13]I wonder whether the mainstream of comet experts will acknowledge that 'Oumuamua may have not been a natural dark comet if it becomes clear that their so-called dark comet 1998 KY26 is technological in origin beyond any reasonable doubt. My plea to the mainstream of comet experts is simple.

[00:07:39]Please extend your training data set to include not just rocks and icebergs, but also the space objects launched by humans over the past 69 years.

[00:07:52]After all, we know that the truthfulness of statements made by AI systems depends sensitively on the extent of their training data sets. This is why the US invest in 2026 over 700 billion dollars in data centers for training AI systems.

[00:08:15]The database on all space objects launched by humans is a rather modest addition to all the asteroids and comets we know about. Is it too much to ask that the assessments of comet experts will be trained on it as well? On September 17th, 2020, Pan-STARRS1, the same telescope that discovered Oumuamua, identified another near-Earth object which showed non-gravitational acceleration without a cometary tail.

[00:08:48]Naturally, this object labeled 2020 SO would have been classified as another dark comet. However, follow-up spectroscopy by NASA's infrared telescope facility revealed that its spectrum resembles that of stainless steel, confirming that it is the Centaur upper stage used to launch the Surveyor 2 spacecraft towards the moon.

[00:09:16]I rest my case.

[00:09:18]2020 SO was pushed away from the sun by solar radiation pressure, the same mechanism that I proposed in a 2018 publication as the source of the non-gravitational acceleration of Oumuamua. We know that 2020 SO has a technological origin because we launched it. The remaining question is who launched 'Oumuamua? Before my morning jog at sunrise, I heard a voice from the past. Hi Avi, I am reaching out because of your long-standing connection with my grandfather, General James A.

[00:09:56]Abrahamson.

[00:09:58]My husband, author and photographer Casey Fredette, conducted a series of in-depth interviews with Jim.

[00:10:05]Drawing from those conversations along with historical records, news articles, and other research, he recently published a book chronicling Jim's remarkable life and career.

[00:10:18]Given your history with him, I would be honored to send you a complimentary copy of the book. I believe you may enjoy revisiting some of the stories and accomplishments that shaped his extraordinary legacy.

[00:10:32]Best, Tiffany Fredette.

[00:10:35]To which I replied as follows.

[00:10:38]Dear Tiffany, so wonderful to hear from you. You made my day. If not for your grandfather, I would not get to where I am. In case you haven't seen it already, here is a photo from February 1986 of me at age 24 explaining results from our SDI project to your grandfather.

[00:11:01]Dear Tiffany, so wonderful to hear from you. You made my day. If not for your grandfather, I would not get to where I am. In case you haven't seen it already, here is a photo from February 1986 of me at age 24 explaining results from our SDI project to your grandfather.

[00:11:22]I would love to read Casey's book. Also, please convey my warmest wishes to your grandfather. With warm regards, Avi.

[00:11:32]P.S. Here is a brief summary of my career from a bio sketch related to the above-mentioned photo, where your grandfather is mentioned.

[00:11:42]Loeb started his career as an Israeli Air Force captain in the elite program Talpiot, 1980 to 1988.

[00:11:52]He received a PhD in plasma physics at age 24 at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem while proposing and leading the first international project funded by Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, SDI, also known as Star Wars.

[00:12:10]The photo below shows Loeb giving a slide presentation in Israel to the SDI director General J. A. Abrahamson in February 1986.

[00:12:23]This SDI project on a novel method for propulsion to high speeds using electric energy brought Loeb for routine visits to Washington, D.C. and eventually in 1988 to a long-term position at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, where he started his career in astrophysics.

[00:12:47]In 1993, Loeb was hired as an assistant professor in the astronomy department at Harvard University, where he received tenure within 3 years.

[00:12:59]>> As for Professor >> Professor Avi Loeb, renowned theoretical physicist, Harvard professor, head of the Galileo project. Professor Loeb, always a joy to see you. So good to see you again. I want to bring up the footage again as you can walk us through what we're seeing here. What do you see in the video and what goes through your mind here?

[00:13:17]>> Uh thank you so much for having me, Natasha. Um well, um we see a a strike of a meteor which um And this not at the volcano, but actually behind it. And then the light coming up is most likely the glint from a satellite reflecting sunlight.

[00:13:35]You know, there are more than 10,000 communication satellites moving around the earth. So it's not very unlikely to see such a thing.

[00:13:43]>> So you think that this is completely unrelated that this is that that light has nothing to do with not originating from the meteor or the meteorite. It is literally an unrelated satellite that is reflecting light.

[00:13:55]>> Right.

[00:13:55]>> Oh, >> [laughter] >> okay. So in in your opinion, this is not a UFO.

[00:14:02]>> No, not at all. I mean a UFO obviously is a mixed bag.

[00:14:08]Most of the time these are phenomena that are related to human-made objects or natural phenomena like we're discussing.

[00:14:16]But in in this case we have a combination. A meteor is natural and the satellite is human-made.

[00:14:23]So when we consider UFOs, the challenge is to characterize the the object enough to rule out the possibility that it's human-made or natural.

[00:14:36]>> And it's just a total coincidence that it seems to be following almost that exact same reverse path.

[00:14:41]>> Right, but right now satellites pose a major issue for astronomical observations cuz they present light in the sky. And there are lots of streaks that are observed in exposures from astronomical observatories. And that's a major issue because we used to run away from city lights, but now there are city lights in the sky.

[00:15:04]>> Very interesting and well put. I want to get your take on this as well. It's now being reported that White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller discussed amnesty for UAP whistleblowers with Congressman Eric Burlison who's proposing a 60-day window for those with information to come forward. I I assume you support this. Why is this so important?

[00:15:25]>> Well, it's very important because so far in the two batches that they were released of UFO videos, images, and documents, the data was not good enough for us to identify any object of extraterrestrial origin.

[00:15:42]And presumably, there would be much more information available from people who worked within government that have knowledge of things that are much higher quality data. And in particular, whether there are any materials from crash sites as David Grusch argued in his testimony in Congress. And in fact, David Grusch himself will be involved in a public event that will take place on Tuesday in 10 days or so where he and representative Burlison, Moskowitz, and uh representative Luna, and representative Burchett will discuss possible revelations with the public about UFOs. So, the question is the fundamental question is whether there is classified information or materials that were delegated to corporations that are of much higher significance.

[00:16:47]And of course, having amnesty to whistleblowers would be fundamental in in allowing this information to get to the public.

[00:16:55]>> I'll be speaking with Congressman Burchett tomorrow, so we'll be discussing that as well. Let me ask you with the time we have left. There's also this theory going around that the CIA is monitoring certain ancestry or genetic type test websites for genetic markers that could help identify potential aliens living among us. Your thoughts on this? Is this a real possibility or just another wild theory?

[00:17:17]>> Well, it's possible that some people are speculating, but I think it's extremely unlikely that if we are visited, we will have biological beings that share our DNA because our DNA is a relatively recent phenomenon here on Earth.

[00:17:34]The humans existed only for the past few million years, and before that, the DNA looked very different, as we know among many species on Earth. And moreover, it has a particular chirality where the molecules are organized in a the DNA is a right-handed, so to speak.

[00:17:53]And if aliens come here, it's not clear whether they would be organized the molecules of the DNA of them would be organized right-handed or left-handed. And obviously, we should not shake their hands, let alone have babies with them because all the diseases of DNA that is left-handed, they would be unprotected as far as our bodies. I mean, it would pose a health risk for us. So, I would argue it's very unlikely to have a DNA that matches life forms on Earth coming from another star.

[00:18:28]>> We shot a couple of full podcast episodes together, Professor Loeb, and that's one of the things I remember. If you ever meet an alien, never shake its hand. That's what you told me.

[00:18:38]I'm keep- I'm keeping that top of mind.

[00:18:40]Professor Avi Loeb, always a joy. Thank you so much.

[00:18:43]>> Thanks for having me.

[00:18:44]>> All right.