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Hubble Finds Unidentified Object In Space
Gizmodo is reporting that the Hubble space telescope has found a new unidentified object in the middle of nowhere. Some are even suggesting that this could be a new class of object. Of course, without actually understanding more about it, the speculation seems a bit wild. "The object also appeared out of nowhere. It just wasn't there before. In fact, they don't even know where it is exactly located because it didn't behave like anything they know. Apparently, it can't be closer than 130 light-years but it can be as far as 11 billion light-years away. It's not in any known galaxy either. And they have ruled out a supernova too. It's something that they have never encountered before. In other words: they don't have a single clue about where or what the heck this thing is."
Well, it was observed with multiple telescopes, so it's not an artifact. The full paper can be found here: http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0809/0809.1648v1.pdf
The Sky and Telescope article is much better than the Gizmodo blog. The article explains why it can't be closer than 130 ly due to no parallax, though IDK why they didn't use a more sensitive satellite for measuring parallax of objects up to 1600 ly away. Maybe it was only seen after the fact, or the other satellite was not sensitive enough? The thing could not be farther than 11 billion ly either, since otherwise the light would be distorted as it passed through interstellar hydrogen clouds (i.e. "cosmic hydrogen absorption in its spectrum"). The Sky and Telescope article even includes a reference to the original paper describing the phenomenon. I suggest you read that article instead. It is much more interesting!
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This object supposedly faded into existence over 100 days or so, and then took just as long to fade. I'm curious to know what frequency was the most intense during this time.
Did we observe anything with our other space telescopes? Gamma ray burst?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_ray_burst_progenitors
There are astronomical phenomena we've theorised to exist, but so far have had little if any observations of such. Take this little beauty:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quark-nova
Okay, so our astrophysicists are throwing that one out there. Perhaps we have seen a few - SN2006gy, SN2005gj, SN2005ap - but maybe we're kidding ourselves, and this is the Real Thing.
What do we call it when a quasar effectively goes supernova? (Not hypernova, that is reserved for very large stars.) Could a quasar even do this?
Perhaps what we've witnessed is the formation - or destruction - of a truly exotic object. And no, we don't have to resort to Dark Matter.
Tm
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It's a common misconception that the Hubble has a lens. But, like all large telescopes, it has a curved mirror instead.
I do wish the Funny mod wouldn't make so many posts appear so prominently on a thread.
If that ever changed, I'd stop reading it. I already get all the dry tech news I need, but come to Slashdot for the twisted geek view on things. A huge part of that is a shared sense of humor, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
Think of Slashdot as a bar you go to after work. Sure, you'll hear some serious conversations, but you'll hear a lot more people telling jokes and enjoying themselves away from the office.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Here you go: http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0809/0809.1648v1.pdf
IANAP, but my understanding is that the spectra emitted by matter/antimatter annihilation is fairly well-understood, and that most of the energy is carried in very high frequencies, like gamma rays.
Meanwhile, if you scan through the paper itself (arXiv link is downthread), they discuss spectra and absorption bands that are roughly similar to other stellar events in overall energy profile; a lot of it was in the visible spectrum.
My admittedly very poor understanding is that an M/AM event would look roughly like a gamma-ray burst, whereas this looked a lot more like a nova, albeit a very unusual one that didn't match any known profile.
The authors' best suggestion was a stellar merger event of unknown type.
Corrections from people who know astrophysics better than I would be quite appreciated...
I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.
after work?
The thing in the box has no place in the language-game at all; not even as a something; for the box might even be empty.
*dorkhat*
Ding ding, the post-original movies explanation was that the run to kessel involves passing a cluster of supermassive blackholes where the goal to avoid detection as a smuggler was to trim the trip as close to the event horizon as possible without falling past the horizon.
The closer to the event horizon you go, the faster you need to be going to get out again, which requires a higher maximum velocity. Doing so in 12 parsecs is apparently a good indication of a fast ship.
*dorkhat off*