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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."
But there's nothing insightful, informative, or interesting to say. The summary covered that: "they don't have a single clue about where or what the heck this thing is."
Can't get much funnier than getting your astronomy news from a gadget site.
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say it's a rock.
A rock that appears suddenly and then disappears later? And is visible from light-years away? And has a spectral signature that doesn't match anything in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey? That's some rock.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
How insightful can a comment be when even the NASA astronomers don't know what it is? It's a post of ignorance, i.e. there's nothing more to be said unless someone has more data. The funny's just filling the void that would otherwise be filled with the chirping of crickets.
In the absence of insight, funny wins out.
"The most exciting phrase in science, the one that heralds a new discovery, is rarely "Eureka!" and more often "That's funny. It's not supposed to do that..."."