Episode 913: Avi Loeb on 3IATLAS

Summary

Newt's World — Episode 913: Avi Loeb on 3IATLAS

Date: November 23, 2025
Host: Newt Gingrich
Guest: Professor Avi Loeb, Harvard Astrophysicist

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Newt Gingrich hosts Professor Avi Loeb, a prominent astrophysicist from Harvard and Director of the Galileo Project, to discuss the discovery and mysteries surrounding the interstellar object "3I ATLAS." Their conversation explores the scientific, technological, and philosophical implications of tracking near-Earth objects, the possibility of extraterrestrial technology, and the importance of humility and curiosity in scientific inquiry.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The George E. Brown Jr. Near Earth Object Survey Act and Its Impact

• Background: Congress mandated NASA to find and track 90% of near-Earth objects (NEOs) larger than 140 meters by 2020, spurred by historic asteroid impacts, like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs.
• Survey Efforts:
  • Pan-STARRS in Hawaii and the upcoming Rubin Observatory in Chile are central to this mission.
  • Smaller telescopes, like ATLAS, play a vital supporting role.
• Purpose: The aim is to detect dangerous objects early and, equally, to remain open to the possibility of discovering non-natural, perhaps technological, visitors from beyond our Solar System.
• Loeb's Critique:
  • Science should be about learning with humility, not just defending conventional expertise.
  • Current attitudes among experts can stifle out-of-the-box thinking, especially regarding unidentified phenomena.
  • Quote: “The foundation of science is the humility to learn. However, what you find in academia these days is, is the arrogance of expertise.” (Prof. Avi Loeb, 08:30)

2. Why Curiosity and Risk-Taking Are Essential to Science

• Loeb warns that scientific tenure—which is supposed to encourage risk—often has the opposite effect, making researchers play it safe out of concern for ego and reputation.
• He encourages young scientists to keep their individuality:
  • Analogy: “If they want a life worth living, they should actually maintain their colors and not rub against each other.” (Prof. Avi Loeb, 09:55)

3. Planetary Catastrophes and the Urgency of Space Expansion

• Discussion on the Yucatan asteroid impact and how extinction-level events could recur.
• Loeb suggests that for humanity’s long-term survival, civilization must expand beyond Earth—pointing out that even Mars is a less hospitable option than advanced space habitats.
• Quote: “One way or another, we need to move away from a single point where a catastrophe can wipe us out. That's the galactic version of Darwin's natural selection.” (Prof. Avi Loeb, 12:41)
• He speculates a major discovery (like alien tech) could shift global budgets and priorities in favor of space exploration.

4. The Case of 3I ATLAS: A Potentially Unusual Interstellar Visitor

• Discovery Details:
  • 3I ATLAS is unusually large (est. 20 km in diameter), much bigger than previous interstellar objects, and was detected by a modest telescope.
  • Its brightness and trajectory suggest either extraordinary natural coincidence or a possible engineered origin.
• Key Anomalies:
  • Its path closely follows the plane of the Solar System, which is rare for interstellar objects.
  • It sheds nickel with little iron, and a NASA image showed a glow or "light beam" ahead of it, not behind as would be expected from a comet tail.
  • Quote: “If it were technological, of course, that makes sense, because it wants to avoid any damage from impact by micrometeorites…” (Prof. Avi Loeb, 21:02)
• Loeb advocates for collecting more evidence before drawing conclusions, criticizing academic censorship of unconventional ideas.
• Suppressed Hypotheses: He recounts being forced to remove a sentence about the possibility of a technological origin from a journal article—then writing a separate paper on that idea.

5. The Limits of Current Technology

• Despite “3I ATLAS” coming close to planets, we can’t yet easily intercept or land a probe on such objects.
• The Juno spacecraft at Jupiter, if it had more fuel, might have been able to intercept it; Loeb lobbied through Rep. Anna Paulina Luna to explore this, highlighting the importance of preparedness for future interstellar objects.
  • Quote: “If you know about an object early enough…you don’t need to maneuver in order to intercept it by a lot.” (Prof. Avi Loeb, 23:32)

6. Are We Alone?

• Loeb and Gingrich agree that the probability of humanity being alone in the universe is vanishingly small.
• Loeb critiques the focus on finding only microbial life, urging equal effort in searching for technological civilizations as well.
  • Quote: “We should also, at the same time, invest billions of dollars in the search for technological civilizations. And the benefit would be far greater than finding microbes, because we can learn from them.” (Prof. Avi Loeb, 29:30)

7. Reflections on Scientific Method and Motivation

• Loeb shares his personal journey from philosophy to astrophysics, motivated by fundamental questions about existence and the universe.
• He encourages young people to play along with the system until they achieve independence—but never to lose their curiosity or individuality.
  • Quote: “Always maintain your childhood curiosity. And when you get tenure, innovate, take risks... The biggest reward I got…is to get emails from…a former US Air Force pilot who said, because of you, my daughter wants to become a scientist.” (Prof. Avi Loeb, 34:13)
• He calls for science to be presented as an open, evidence-driven detective process, rather than something reserved for elite experts.

8. Looking Forward: Optimism for Scientific Discovery

• Loeb’s mantra: “The best is yet to come.”
• He physically embodies this optimism by turning his office into a mini-museum focused on the future, discarding file cabinets of the past.
  • Quote: “I'm focused on the future. I don't care about what happened in the past and let's make the future better.” (Prof. Avi Loeb, 38:38)

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• “The foundation of science is the humility to learn. However, what you find in academia these days is, is the arrogance of expertise.”
  — Professor Avi Loeb, 08:30

• “If they want a life worth living, they should actually maintain their colors and not rub against each other.”
  — Professor Avi Loeb, 09:55

• “One way or another, we need to move away from a single point where a catastrophe can wipe us out. That's the galactic version of Darwin's natural selection.”
  — Professor Avi Loeb, 12:41

• “If it were technological, of course, that makes sense, because it wants to avoid any damage from impact by micrometeorites…”
  — Professor Avi Loeb, 21:02

• “If you know about an object early enough…you don’t need to maneuver in order to intercept it by a lot.”
  — Professor Avi Loeb, 23:32

• “We should also, at the same time, invest billions of dollars in the search for technological civilizations. And the benefit would be far greater than finding microbes, because we can learn from them.”
  — Professor Avi Loeb, 29:30

• “Always maintain your childhood curiosity. And when you get tenure, innovate, take risks... The biggest reward I got…is to get emails from…a former US Air Force pilot who said, because of you, my daughter wants to become a scientist.”
  — Professor Avi Loeb, 34:13

• “I'm focused on the future. I don't care about what happened in the past and let's make the future better.”
  — Professor Avi Loeb, 38:38

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Important Segment Timestamps

• Introduction & Background (03:38–05:20)
• Survey Telescopes & Impact History (05:40–08:00)
• Science Culture & Risk-Taking (09:06–10:45)
• Planetary Catastrophes & Human Survival (10:45–14:41)
• 3I ATLAS Anomalies & Hypotheses (18:39–23:04)
• Technological Limits & Intercepting Interstellar Objects (23:04–24:54)
• Are We Alone? Scientific Strategies (28:39–32:02)
• Loeb’s Scientific Journey & Advice to Students (32:02–37:09)
• Vision for Science & Society (37:09–38:48)

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Tone & Takeaways

The conversation is animated, accessible, and occasionally philosophical, with Loeb bringing a fresh, humble, and open-minded approach to science.
Newt Gingrich acts both as an informed host and a curious collaborator, inviting listeners to think about humanity’s place in the universe.
The episode is a call for curiosity, risk-taking, and broader support—both societal and financial—for the search for life and knowledge beyond Earth.

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For more of Professor Avi Loeb's writings:
avi-loeb.medium.com

Transcript

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[Professor Avi Loeb]

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[Newt Gingrich]

On this episode of newtworld, the United States Congress passed legislation called the George E. Brown Jr. Near Earth Object Survey act of 2005, which mandated that NASA find and track 90% of the Near Earth Objects called NEOs, of course larger than 140 meters by 2020. As a result of that legislation, we're now starting to look at the skies more closely and with better technology. And as my guest today has said, we're now pursuing one of the most exciting questions in science. Are we alone here to discuss the Recent discovery of 3i atlas? I'm really pleased to welcome my guest, Professor Avi Loeb. He is the Frank B. Baer Jr. Professor of Science at Harvard University. He serves as Director of the Institute for Theory and Computation within the Harvard Smithsonian center for Astrophysics and also heads the Galileo project. As you can imagine, we're going to have a lot to talk about. His articles about 3i Atlas can be found at avi-loeb.medium.com. Ave welcome and thank you for joining me on Newts World.

[Professor Avi Loeb]

It's my great privilege to speak with you, Newt.

[Newt Gingrich]

There are a lot of things I want to ask you about, but obviously we have to start with three EYE Atlas. Let's talk about what happened after Congress passed the legislation asking that we track near Earth objects. What has that actually led to as a practical thing?

[Professor Avi Loeb]

Right. So the story starts 66 million years ago when a giant asteroid the size of Manhattan island hit the Earth. And we learned the lesson. We think that we are more intelligent than these animals were. They were looking down and dominating their environment. But then they were completely diminished from the surface of Earth. And so Congress wanted NASA to find 90% of all objects bigger than a football field. 140 meters. And for that purpose there were two survey telescopes constructed. The first one is Pan Starrs in Hawaii that monitored the near Earth objects as big as a football field or bigger. And they found a significant fraction of those that might come close to Earth. But they didn't fulfill the congressional task. And then most recently the National Science foundation, the Department of Energy funded the Rubin Observatory in Chile that will get closer to completing this task. But there was also a small telescope called ATLAS that was placed in Chile monitoring the sky for near Earth asteroids. And we are making progress. But what we are trying to find are rocks from the solar system, from the construction project of the planets. These are like Lego pieces, building blocks that were left behind. And they are moving around in our vicinity. And every now and then one of them hits the Earth and becomes a meteor. It creates a fireball. Once a year, there is an atomic explosion in our atmosphere with proportions similar to the Hiroshima atomic bomb energy output. And it happens high up in the atmosphere about 50 km altitude. And so we don't really worry about it. Not much damage is caused on the ground. But these are objects of order the size of a person. But we want to find bigger ones that could cause a lot of damage if they impact the Earth. And that was the goal. Now, in the process of monitoring the sky, I should say there was, for example, on January 2, a near Earth asteroid that was cataloged by the Minor Planet Center. Then a day later they realized, oh, wait a minute, this one moves along the path of the Tesla Roadster car that was launched by SpaceX. So then they said, no, no, we will remove that from the catalog. It's actually not a rock, it's a car. And there is a big lesson to be learned. The only reason they identified it as technological and not natural, a natural object, is because we knew that SpaceX launched this object in 2018. However, just imagine someone more accomplished than Elon Musk in the Milky Way galaxy over the past 13.8 billion years. You know, there are 100 billion stars like the sun, and it's quite possible that near one of them, you know, there was a civilization that was more accomplished than we are. And so we should be aware of the possibility that there might be a visitor to our backyard from outside the solar system. And that's the message I'm Trying to convey, and just to summarize in one sentence, my way of thinking about science is that it's an opportunity for us to learn something new. And for that we need the humility to learn. The foundation of science is the humility to learn. However, what you find in academia these days is, is the arrogance of expertise. Comet experts will say that anything in the sky is a comet or an asteroid. They will refuse to include in their training data set technological objects.

[Newt Gingrich]

I was intrigued when I first read you talking about this, because all too often scientists think that they're sort of like mandarins were in Confucian China. They are the holders of coveted knowledge as opposed to the real scientists who are the explorers trying to understand what they don't currently understand.

[Professor Avi Loeb]

Exactly. And on top of that, there is the whole concept of tenure in academia, which was meant to encourage people to take risks. So I met with a group of 20 students and they asked me why isn't there more risk taking projects in science? And I explained that, you know, most scientists are worried about their ego. They would like to get honors, awards, recognition. They show off, and they take very little risks in order not to be wrong. That's exactly the wrong approach, because then the chance of a discovery is reduced. If you follow the beaten path and do not deviate from it, it might take much longer before you find the truth. And I recommend it to the students. When they follow their career, they should also remember that when they go to the beach, they see all these seashells and they, the ones that are relatively new have their colors. However, those that rubbed against other seashells lost their colors. And so if they want a life worth living, they should actually maintain their colors and not rub against each other. It's a message that is not popular in academia. But I'm trying to do the best I can. And I actually show it by example. And of course I get attacked, but at least I feel that I'm following my passion this way.

[Newt Gingrich]

I want to go back to something you said in passing early on. When you look at the map of the area around the Yucatan Peninsula, you can see the shape of the comet which hit, which was so enormous that for at least three or four years, the secondary effects, the change in the atmosphere, the scale of the wind which was caused by it, and the heat of that wind. I mean, the dinosaurs, which have been absolutely dominant for a variety of reasons, were unable to survive the transition. Although one branch of dinosaurs, which we call birds, did survive. Mammals, who were often small and in burrows, did survive. And so you see life begin again. But the Smithsonian once had a display on this and they had a display sign that had a dinosaur sort of looking up and a comet coming in. And it said one very bad day.

[Professor Avi Loeb]

The one thing to keep in mind, nobody would mourn. If humanity perishes on this planet, there must have been a lot like us. And if you ask where is everybody? Like Enrico Fermi asked, I would argue most of them are dead. You know, most civilizations that lived over the past billions of years died. And the question is, which civilization will be remembered in the long term? If we want to leave an imprint, if we want to be somehow documented in the history books of the Milky Way galaxy over the next few billion years. The only way to do that is to venture into space and not to stay on this planet for a variety of reasons. Because there might be a meteor impact like we just discussed. There might be some self inflicted wounds. We see how geopolitics may be unstable and there might be a global war. Eventually the sun will brighten and make the Earth a desert just like Mars. One way or another, we need to move away from a single point where a catastrophe can wipe us out. That's the galactic version of Darwin's natural selection. The fittest survives and therefore we might learn a lesson from other civilizations. If we find the them arriving to our backyard, we would know what is the right tactics for us to use. But you know, my view is there will not be a big shift. I mean we are investing $2.4 trillion a year in military budgets worldwide. The biggest shift I can imagine is if we uncover some alien technology near Earth and then we realize there is a new threat. And therefore we should allocate, let's say a fraction of a trillion dollars a year to space exploration. And in that case we will bid three, the infrastructure of a warning alert system away from Earth. And if we put a trillion dollars a year to space exploration, I think we can do a lot. In fact, my view is that just going to the moon or Mars is very narrow minded. You know, Mars is a desert. It's much worse than the rock that we currently inhabit. It makes much more sense to build a habitat, a space platform that can accommodate humans for long journeys. And with a trillion dollars a year, if you put the best archite, the best technologists, the best scientists on this task, it's sort of a mega Manhattan Project. But for space exploration, we might actually be able by the end of this century to build the infrastructure for humans to live comfortably beyond Earth. So My hope is, you know, if we discover an object that is technological in origin, not human made, then it will change everything. Not only in the sense of us going to space, but also changing priorities on Earth. You know, it just doesn't make sense for us to invest so much resources in trying to either kill other people or protect ourselves from being killed by other people. Like we are all in the same boat and we better cooperate.

[Newt Gingrich]

That's a view. I think that both Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have this sense that you've got to get off the planet to have some stability in the long run.

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[Professor Avi Loeb]

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[Newt Gingrich]

Let me take you back to what recently has made you even more famous, and that is this particular discovery of 3I atlas. What are the characteristics that make this questionable as opposed to just being automatically labeled as a natural object?

[Professor Avi Loeb]

Well, as soon as it was discovered on July 1, I realized it's very big. It was bright, discovered by a telescope that is just half a meter in diameter. And I calculated if the brightness stems from a reflection of sunlight from a surface of an object, it should be 20km in diameter, as big as Manhattan Island. And that's pretty big. That's as big as the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs. And such objects are extremely rare. There are many more small ones than big ones, and it's more than a million times more massive than the first interstellar object. So I was wondering, how is that possible, that the third object would be a million times more massive than the first object? And I calculated that there isn't enough rocky material in interstellar Space to deliver such a big package to our backyard over a decade, you would expect it once per 10,000 years or longer. In fact, I wrote this paper while going on vacation for the fourth of July. And I told my wife, I need some free time to write it. She was very accommodating. The other possibility is that, you know, maybe it was targeting the inner solar system. It's not drawn out of the reservoir of random rocks. And so that means the trajectory was designed by some intelligence. And I had it in a final sentence in my paper, which the editor of the journal refused to publish. He said, you must remove this last sentence. And the rebel I am, I removed the sentence. But then I wrote a whole paper just about the technological option. Because I don't think that in the modern time we should allow censorship of ideas. It doesn't make any sense. And this editor went to speak with the New York Post and said that this is nonsense. And I thought it's completely inappropriate. And at any event, this object turns out to also follow the plane of the planets around the sun with a chance of 1 in 500. It's within 5 degrees of the so called ecliptic plane. And again, that suggests some kind of a reconnaissance mission because it basically allows the NASA observatory. So NASA had a press conference just a couple of days ago and they were talking about how easy it is to observe three ayatlas with many of their assets in space, including orbiters of Mars rovers on Mars and all kinds of other missions. And the reason for that is simple. This object is flying in the plane of the planets. And it actually comes very close to some planets like Mars, Venus, Jupiter. It avoids the Earth, by the way. So they should be extremely grateful. If this is a natural object, it's just a miracle that it's first so big that it's very bright. I calculate that's a chance of less than one in a thousand for it to be that bright. And then in addition to that, it's also in the plane where all of our space assets are. And that's a chance of less than one in a hundred. So altogether with less than one in 100,000. Just considering these two anomalies. On top of that, it's shedding nickel with very little iron. NASA in the press conference showed the best image we have from closest. When it came closest to Mars. The high rise camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter was able to get a snapshot of it. And it looks as if there is a glow of light preceding it instead of trailing it. And it's not in the direction of the sun. It doesn't look like a cometary tail. It's in the direction of motion, as if there is a beam of light or a beam of particles illuminating the path ahead of the object. If it were technological, of course, that makes sense, because it wants to avoid any damage from impact by micrometeorites or some objects along the path. But if it's natural, it remains to be explained. And my approach to it is, let's collect more evidence, because it's a blind date of interstellar proportion. In a blind date, you better observe the other side before having an opinion.

[Newt Gingrich]

Now, as I understand it, we don't yet have the technology which would have allowed us to intercept this, even with robots and land, just to figure out what the hell's going on. We're still probably at least a generation away from that kind of capability.

[Professor Avi Loeb]

There is a caveat to that. Because this object is moving in the plane, it will come closest to Jupiter on March 16, 2026. And two months ago, I wrote a paper saying if we could just use the fuel on the Juno spacecraft that is orbiting Jupiter, it may actually be able to intercept to get very close to this object. And the following day after I submitted my paper, I had a phone call from Representative Anna Paulina Luna, who wanted an update about 3A Atlas. And I told her about this opportunity to use Juno. And very graciously she wrote a letter to the acting administrator of NASA, Sean Duffy, and encouraged NASA to look into that. Turns out that the Juno spacecraft doesn't have enough fuel. They used most of their fuel, but if it had the original amount of fuel that it started with, it could have actually even collided with REI ATLAS because there was enough lead time. So the point is that if you know about an object early enough, you don't need to maneuver in order to intercept it by a lot. And what we need is some fleet of spacecraft that is ready for the next interstellar object in case they can maneuver ahead of time and just be in the right place at the right time, get a close up photograph or even crash into it or give us much more information about it.

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[Zing Singh and Simon Jack]

Hi, I'm Zingxing. And I'm Simon Jack and together we host Good Bad Billionaire, the podcast exploring how some of the world's richest people made their fortunes. And we are back with a brand new season of billionaires. Yes, movie megastar Arnold Schwarzenegger, America's richest self made businesswoman Diane Hendricks and co founder of Snapchat Evan Spiegel, to name just a few. And we're asking you to decide if they're good, bad or just another billionaire Good Bad billionaire from the BBC World Service. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

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[Professor Avi Loeb]

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[Professor Avi Loeb]

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[Newt Gingrich]

You raise a question, which I think we're on the same page about. And that is, what, mathematically, is the likelihood that we're alone in the entire universe? And it just seems to me that's almost impossible.

[Professor Avi Loeb]

Right? I think it's arrogant of us to believe that we are not only alone, but the top of the food chain. We are definitely not at the top of the food chain in the Milky Way galaxy. But I can understand where the notion in academia comes from. And so we as a civilization, including academia, have not matured yet. Because right now, the highest priority in the decadal survey of astronomy and astrophysics in the United States is to invest more than $10 billion in the next two decades in search for microbes on other planets. And it's just like seeing a lot of houses similar to your own house. There are lots of Earth sun analogs, maybe tens of billions of them in the Milky Way galaxy alone. And we see a lot of houses on our street that look like ours. And we say, okay, well, we have plenty of microbes in our home. Therefore, let's search for microbes in the houses next to us. And for that, you need to build a huge instrument that costs a lot of money to search for microbes in the neighbor's yard. And it's not easy. But if there is a resident in one of these houses, the resident might show up at our front door or might throw a tennis ball that we find in our backyard, or might have a construction project that we can see from a distance. So my point is we should hedge our bets. Of course we can search for microbes. However, we should also, at the same time, invest billions of dollars in the search for technological civilizations. And the benefit would be far greater than finding microbes, because we can learn from them. We might learn about new technologies, new science. It will inspire us to go to space, and it will change our focus from conflicts on this rock that we all inhabit. To think more broadly about the future, of the human species, if I remember.

[Newt Gingrich]

Correctly, it's kind of on a voluntary basis, But a long period of trying to listen for radio waves, et cetera, that's really been, I think, a worldwide project. But I think they haven't yet found any radio waves that they're confident they can identify.

[Professor Avi Loeb]

And that is like waiting for a phone call. It's a different approach. And you might be on a street where there are residents, but nobody may call you either, because the technologies you are using are not suited to the way they are transmitting their signals. Maybe we are using radio communication that is a very ancient technology and they have something much better to communicate, or they behave like as if they live in a dark forest. You know, that is called the dark forest hypothesis. They are worried about predators, so they don't make a sound and they listen. And over the past century, we've been transmitting radio waves without any concern. So everyone within a hundred light years from Earth knows about us and they monitor what we are doing. And perhaps they will come to visit us as soon as we pose a threat to them. Just waiting to listen to a radio signal is not necessarily the right approach. And my point is we should try something else. Because Einstein said, you know, if you keep trying the same thing, hoping for a different result, then you're not necessarily very smart.

[Newt Gingrich]

You're clearly very enthusiastic about science and very enthusiastic about knowledge. How did you get into all this when you were a kid? What drew you into this?

[Professor Avi Loeb]

I grew up on a farm. Haven't changed much. If you ask people who knew me back then, I was collecting eggs every afternoon. But then on weekends I would drive a tractor to the hills of the village and read philosophy books. I was interested in the most fundamental questions about our existence, so I wanted to pursue philosophy. But then I grew up in Israel and there is an obligatory military service at age 18, so I prefer to go to a program. I was recruited to a program that allowed me to pursue science. For me, it was the closest approximation to philosophy. I can still ask big questions. And around that time, President Reagan had the Strategic Defense Initiative and General Abramson visited Israel. He was the head of sdi, the Star wars initiative. And I presented to him a project that was the first one to be funded, the first international project to be funded by SDI that I led along with an experimentalist, and that brought me to Washington, because we were funded at a few million dollars a year back then. And in one of the visits, I visited Princeton and they offered me a five year fellowship under one condition. That I'll switch to astrophysics. And so it was just like an offer from the Godfather that I couldn't decline because it's a very prestigious institution, the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, where Einstein was faculty a few decades earlier. Eventually, I was offered a faculty position at Harvard, and they tenured me again with a low probability. And at that point I realized that even though it was an arranged marriage, I'm married to my true love because I can pursue fundamental questions using the scientific method.

[Newt Gingrich]

That's actually a great story. I'm curious, if somebody was listening to us today and is curious, what advice would you give to them if they were 18, 20 years old about going into science?

[Professor Avi Loeb]

So my advice is, of course, you need to dance to the tunes of selection committees to get tenure in academia. So for a limited period of time, do that, but never pretend to be the adult in the room. Always maintain your childhood curiosity. And when you get tenure, innovate, take risks. Because, you know, we live for such a short time. What's the point of doing what everyone else is doing? There is really not much to that. There is an opportunity to do that. It's not very common, but it's possible and it's a lot of fun. Now, of course, there will always be people who push back, but who cares about people? I don't have any footprint on social media. I'm not trying to get likes. That is not my ambition. It's so much fun to figure out nature and pursue science. And the biggest reward I got in recent weeks is to get emails, for example, from a former US Air Force pilot who said, because of you, my daughter wants to become a scientist. And a woman said, my son now wants a telescope for the holidays as a gift. I get dozens of those emails. For me to inspire the public to pursue science is extremely important because science right now has a very low status in the public's eyes. It's the occupation of the elite, and I'm trying to show that it's work in progress. We can make mistakes, but I'm showing how the process is done by not having a prejudice, by trying to follow the evidence like a detective. It's the work of a detective, and the public loves that. And in addition, the possibility that we might not be alone in the universe, we might have an intelligent neighbor, you know, that's also very appealing to the public. So to me, that's a way to elevate the image of science in the public's eyes. And that's very appropriate we should do that because the public funds science. It's actually the most amazing tool that our society has to make progress. It's really unfortunate that academia betrayed the fundamental curiosity that leads science forward. I see the path of how to do that. You need to start from a sense of humility, not being arrogant as an expert saying we know the answer in advance, but actually saying, let's figure it out. And that's a point of view that was not really echoed in the NASA press conference. They were saying, it's a comet. We know what it is. 3 I Atlas it just came from a different environment. Well, how do you know that? Like, why not say there are lots of puzzles we don't fully understand and we hope to figure them out with more data. And it's an amazing opportunity for us to learn more about what lies outside the solar system, like, give a different approach to doing science and the public would be fascinated by it. And of course, there is also the issue of funding of Science in Washington, D.C. and I do believe that if we were to approach it from a point of view that satisfies the curiosity of the public and helps future technologies, then we should be able to get more funding to science in Washington as well. And I would be delighted to discuss it with anyone related to the White House.

[Newt Gingrich]

One of the reasons I really want to do this interview with you is because you have raised some questions which, if you're a young person, suddenly gets your brain working totally outside the normal. Memorize what we've already learned and gets you into being curious about what we haven't learned. And in a sense, science at its best is about the next thing we're going to learn, not the last thing we memorized. And I think you do that very well. You know, I want to thank you for joining me. This is one of the things I most wanted to do this fall. It's sort of my Thanksgiving present, I guess, to myself. It's a very exciting time to be paying attention to the skies and to what we're discovering. I do want to remind our listeners that your articles can be found atavi Loeb medium.com you've really done a lot, I think, to help science and a lot to help America in thinking about things beyond our planet and, in fact, things beyond our solar system. It's a great honor to me to have you as a guest today.

[Professor Avi Loeb]

Thank you so much. Nut. And my mantra is always that the best is yet to come. You know, I had a lot of file cabinets in my office that I threw away because the most accomplished sculptor in the US Greg Wyatt decided to donate two sculptures, bronze sculptures of Galileo Galilei and 51 watercolors. So I just removed the past from my office and it's now a mini museum. And I told my administrator, you know, I'm focused on the future. I don't care about what happened in the past and let's make the future better. And that's my approach.

[Newt Gingrich]

Well, thank you very, very much for spending your time with us.

[Professor Avi Loeb]

My pleasure and honor.

[Newt Gingrich]

Thank you to my guest, Professor Avi Loeb. Newtsworld is produced by Gingrich360 and iHeartMedia. Our executive producer is Garnesey Sloan. Our researcher is Rachel Peterson. The artwork for the show was created by Steve Pendley. Special thanks to team at Gingrich 360. If you've been enjoying Newts World, I hope you'll go to Apple Podcasts and both rate us with five stars and give us a review so others can learn what it's all about. Join me on [e-mail] I'm Newt Gingrich. This is new tool.

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[Professor Avi Loeb]

I'm Rodney Williams. And I'm Travis Holloway. Welcome to the wealthbreak podcast, a real conversation about finances. Let's be honest, building weft doesn't look the same for everyone.

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I feel like sometimes being broke is a cycle and that we might have.

[Professor Avi Loeb]

To revisit that and we're not stopping at success stories.

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What happens when it doesn't go right? How do you cope with it?

[Professor Avi Loeb]

Because wealth isn't just about money. It's about creating a life where you thrive and help others do the same. Listen to the Wealth Break podcast on the iHeartradio app.

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This is an iHeart podcast.