Slashdot Mirror
Astronomer Offers Theory Into 400-Year-Old Lunar Mystery
webdoodle writes "An astronomer at Columbia University thinks he has solved a 400-year-old mystery: the origin of strange optical flashes seen on the moon's surface. These spots, called 'Transient Lunar Phenomenon' (TLP) by the astronomy community, have confused moon-gazers since the time of ancient scientists. Arlin Crotts now thinks that TLPs are something called 'outgassing', a process where trapped gasses escape to the lunar atmosphere. 'To arrive at his theory, Crotts correlated TLPs with known gas outbursts from the lunar surface as seen by several spacecraft, particularly NASA's Apollo 15 mission in 1971 and the robotic Lunar Prospector in 1998. What he discovered was a remarkable similarity in the pattern of outgassing event locations recorded by spacecraft across the face of the moon and reported TLP sites.'"
if that pepperoni pizza I just consumed can cause outgassing events. My girlfriend says so, but I believe she is mistaken.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
It's an alien space traveler. He crashed on the moon, lost just about everything, no subspace radio, no towel, all he's got is a shiny bit of the craft he's been using as a signal mirror for the past 400 years and we're too damn busy to answer him back! Better hope this doesn't get back to the Guide, our description might be revised to "mostly oblivious."
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
That's because the summary contains a typo that reads "things." Certainly the "typo" tag would be more informative, but whatever. Welcome to folksonomies. Emphasis mine:
The Online Slang Dictionary
The word "stuff" was thought to be too specific.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .