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Alien Comet May Have Infiltrated the Solar System
New Scientist has a piece about Comet Machholz 1, whose uncommon molecular composition suggests, but does not prove, that it may be an interloper from another star system. "Comet Machholz 1 isn't like other comets. David Schleicher of the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, measured the chemical makeup of 150 comets, and found that they all had similar levels of the chemical cyanogen (CN) except for Machholz 1, which has less than 1.5% of the normal level. Along with some other comets, it is also low on the molecules carbon-2 and carbon-3."
I'm sure the other comets are freaking out
"People's problem is not that they are mortal, but that they are suddenly mortal" Terry Pratchett
Nuke it in orbit, it's the only way to be sure
It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.
I, for one, welcome our new interstellar-traveling, cyanogen-lacking space overlords.
It entered our system the moment it heard Obama had Nasa's budget on the chopping block. Coincidence? I think not.
Outsourcing on a galactic level.
I, for one, am sick to death of these alien comets just waltzing into our solar system taking jobs away from good hard working comets of our own solar system!
This is an Italian spy satellite hovering over America to discover the locations of our Hot Dogs, so that Giuseppe Franconi ("Barack Obama") can send jack-botted Italian enforcement agents to confiscate them and replace them with salami! Danger, America!!!!
Lets face it, even if we retrieved a sample and analysed it in a lab, we wouldn't be able to say with any real certainty where it came from. We could probably rule out a lot of places it didn't come from, but without sampling a variety of comets from a variety of local star systems, we won't have anything but speculation to compare it to.
Besides, its only speculation that suggests it didn't come from our own Kuiper belt in the first place - we don't know enough about that to be sure.
, which has less than 1.5% of the normal level.
Um, that doesn't sound like an indication of its alien origin.
The story could go like this: Long long ago, a large comet that had roughly the same concentration of CN as an average one, broke up into 2 pieces. Because the substances are not uniformly distributed over the big comet, one of the pieces happen to have more CN than the other. The one with richer CN then got blown to pieces in a collision of some kind, while the one with less CN survived.
And no, I didn't read TFA ;)
Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.
We must strike now! Else before you know it we'll have dozens of alien comets entering our system. We cannot be seen to allow this behavior.
And you just know that eventually we _will_ find proof of WMD's in the comet's possession. It is inevitable.
What that line is that runs parallel to the comet from the centre of the sun to the bottom left of the image?
It's a rogue comet from the planet Klatuh.
Do you want to know more ?
No, if it's made of naquadah, they'll WANT you to nuke it.
thank you for the awesome headline.
it has informed and entertained.
I'm fairly certain that isotopes of carbon with those masses is impossible unless this comet also contains some neat subatomic particles with anti-mass as well.
The original article has it correct with the 2 and 3 as subscripts. Leave isotopic notation to isotopes.
Alas, I am becoming a god.
I have seen this movie Starship Troopers
Grundgesetz * 23. Mai 1949 - 30. November 2007 - http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/
At least it's not an alien meteor.
If had enough velocity to escape its home system, it wouldn't be captured by "us" either.
damned alien comets! dey tuk R jerbs!!!
our new streaking overlords....
(sounds sorta like the 70's again)
Use your head, can't you, use your head,
You're on earth, there's no cure for that - S. Beckett
Scientists have discovered a Buddhist monk who is not human.
food for thought...
I don't therefore I'm not.
Having read the article, the extra-terrestrial origin idea seems like a long shot to me. There is less cyanogen than normal ! Maybe it formed in unusual conditions... or could it be from another solar system ! Note, in all seriousness, that there has never been a firmly established extra-terrestrial "new comet" (on a hyperbolic orbit), so the statistics make this unlikely but certainly not impossible.
I find dwarf-planet Sedna much more intriguing Sedna's orbit is very strange, this orbit probably formed in an 3-body interaction between the Sun, Sedna, and another star and, if so, there is about a 10% chance that Sedna was originally in orbit about that other star. If I was NASA administrator, one thing I would certainly try and do would be to send a "Pluto Express" type spacecraft there.
I can't see that word without instantly thinking of the chapter from Half Life.
If it's from another solar system there's always a chance of finding new elements. The other consideration is it could be a remnant from the formation of the Galaxy. The rarity of things like certain carbon forms could hint at that option. Such comets and fragments could be far more important than local comets.
Um, pretty sure that doesn't exist.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
So, we're not sure it has infiltrated? The first sentence of the article starts off explaining how it's orbiting our sun.
"A comet orbiting our Sun may be an interloper from another star system."
Shouldn't be that, then, "Infiltrating comet might be alien"?
I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
So all the other comets are not alien?
OK so tell me this, how the hell did they measure the chemical makeup of a comet from another solar system? Did they run out and take a sample and run it under a microscope? Maybe they used some new Tricorder that scans using some ultra yet to be invented scanning frequency. If they set the Tricorder to Kill then we are saved.
I used to like New Scientist till I read this -- Solutions diluted to homeopathic levels actually leave an imprint in the solvent and are a riddle for scientists today. :) ).
For a while, I was struck with a level of awe (and some levelling of pride
Later I learnt that New Scientist will often publish stories only for their sensational effect.
I for one am hugely skeptic of whatever I read in New Scientist.
Dont make a better sig, you insensitive clod!
A post with any inaccuracies about Windows gets ripped to shreds here, but nobody caught Carbon-2 and Carbon-3? Should be 12 and 13, of course.
Why the hostility about "aliens" "infiltrating" our solar system? Why must this be seen as a threat? Huh?
Let's see:
1. Kool Aid (it should be blue) - CHECK
2. Cyanide - CHECK
3. Video Cameras to record our ascension to the spaceship that will take us to heaven - CHECK
4. Special freaky "cult blankies" to cover up with so when they find our "empty shell vessels" they know that this was a joyous occasion, and not some weird cult suicide thing - CHECK
I think we're ready....You guys just head to the mansion, there's plenty of kool-aid for everyone, but I olny have 25 futuristic cult blanky death shrouds, so you may want to bring you own, I suggest blue or black, but whatever you do just make sure it doesn't have snoopy or south park or some cartoon character...Star Wars is okay - we're videoing everything.
If this comet contains an alien ship with energy vampires in it, NASA should have direct orders to destroy it on sight, even if the vampire DOES look just like Mathilda May. (though in truth, that movie was a godsend for young teenage boys eager to see beautiful naked breasts!)
Oldie? would you prefer a "Treehouse" reference lil' one?
I guess when the Heavens Gate cult killed themselves for the Hale-Bop comet, they picked the wrong bus!
These infiltrators are not from another galaxy. They are from the criminal ungerground in Karachi, Pakistan.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
alien now means 'out of this star system'. like, as in, if some entity from mars appeared out of nowhere and landed, they wont be aliens no more.
yay for star system comradeship
Read radical news here
As long as we have Bruce Willis, I'm not worried.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
1) Hide in a steel shed until it passes so you don't disintegrate into red dust.
2) Evade the insane zombie-like people slowly disintegrating into red dust.
3)Wait for the first rain to wash the red dust of of everything.
4) World domination!
What the hell is carbon-2 and carbon-3?
Anyone else read this as "Alien COMBAT May Have Infiltrated the Solar System"
I was thinking Star Wars when I clicked the link :(
Sorry. It's just getting compulsive.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
... to build a wall around our solar system. I am sick of aliens sneaking into our solar system without visas.
I prefer the chemical composition of 409 over Comet.
jsut athnoer menagiensls ltitle psrhae for you to dcoede. Why do we wtsae our tmie dnoig tihs?
well, i think we all know how its going to end now. seriously though, the fact that scientists can study the molecular composition of an object flying through space is awesome.
I for one welcome our new comet over lords!
(someone had too say it)
FIRE THE WAVE MOTION GUN!
This is the real deal people! Stop the presses! Push the financial crisis aside! Set the terror level to RED, and panic panic PANIC! Ahhhh! (Sorry, I didn't get much sleep last night ~:-)
Our Great Lord Alien Comet finally decides to show up... it's late, of course... and it just happens to be the day my cult runs out of ceremonial kool-aid...
Sometimes you just can't catch a break...
One man's constant is another man's variable.
If life is able to arise spontaneously wherever appropriate conditions exist, then the alien comet may have originated from a star with life forms toxic to Earth life. It may be carrying alien life forms in a dormant form (cysts, spores, etc.) that will enter our atmosphere when Earth crosses the alien wake. Once here, the life forms will awake from their dormant state, begin growing, and kill most Earth complex life particularly mammals such as ourselves) off with horrible untreatable infections. Of course, it's also possible that all life is from a creator and has a common origin, in which case the extra-solar life would be similar in form and function to existing Earth life and would not be likely to be deadly.
Cyanogen is (CN)2 - Thats 2 Carbons and 2 Nitrogens. Cyanide is a CN- ion.
The Carbon2 and Carbon3 appear to be general classes of compounds containing 2 Carbons and 3 Carbons - not a specific molecule or isotope.
Prepare for the war against the octospiders, greedy human. Blah.
No sig.
Comets now, what's next?
Oh no! ...Isn't this how the invaders would sneak into a system and take it over (a la Reddick)?
Uh, Linux geek since 1999.
There goes the neighborhood.
Thoughts: [1] 1.5% less in composition... The Oil Pumps are black holes that are sucking substance from other parts of existing universe and thus producing a kind of a drought [2] The Universe is in a recession, it's CEO's are currently blaming speculators from earth and asking the nearest star system for a bailout [3] I should watch some news network for a cult that is preparing to ride this stellar walmart pony express (cool-aid included)
The comet precedes them. Its the necromongers coming to convert us all!
"Machholz 1 will be close to the Sun again in 2012" could this be the one that hits us?? i'm gettting worried..
this is a virtual insanity that always seems to be governed by our love for this useless twisting of our new technology.
... I'll try to evade capture afterwards.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I am shocked! No Lifeforce references? Giant phallic space ships hiding in comets? I thought slashdotters liked B-movie goddesses.
I for one welcome our naked Mathilda May space vampires.
When I first read the headline, I dismissed it out of hand in my head. "What," I thought, "could they have possibly expected, to have a defense system up around the entire solar system already?" Then I got over my cynicism and read the article. The guy is speculating wildly. He needs to talk to a chemist and an astrophysicist, as he is posing these chemical theories as questions in the interview.
Though, if we're all speculating about the weirdness of this 'alien' comet, perhaps this is the reason the Mayan calendar ends in 2012? Or maybe it was just a great work that took forever to compile by hand.