Slashdot Mirror
Bizarre Six-Tailed Asteroid Dumbfounds Scientists
coondoggie writes "Many images from deep space are so cool, weird and unusual it is hard to believe they are real sometimes. This is one of them. Astronomers looking deep into the asteroid belt through NASA's Hubble Space Telescope say they have spotted an asteroid, designated P/2013 P5, with six comet-like tails of dust radiating from it like spokes on a wheel or a spinning garden sprinkler."
They're thrusters.
... they mean it's something new scientists haven't seen before, and haven't figured out yet.
Kinda like the same way you meet someone you don't know, you are dumbfounded by them.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
So I was looking for some spectacular six tailed swastika there, but, meh, some smokey trails.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Space Kitsune!
Off to earn it's last three tails.
Why is this being reported as an asteroid when the original research paper says that it is a comet? http://iopscience.iop.org/2041-8205/778/1/L21/article What is the difference between a comet and an asteroid?
Deslock! Deslock! DES...LOCK!!!!
Asteroids do not have tails. Fusion powered spaceships or comets do though....
liberare massarum ex ignorantia, clausa descendit molestie.
Why do so many of these stories have things like "dumbfounded" or "baffled" in the title? Are these scientists just standing there, exclaiming to everyone who will listen - "I'm just so gosh-darn BAFFLED!" Not from any scientist I've met - but it's always reported as such, as if unknowns weren't a crucial element of the whole, you know, SCIENTIFIC PROCESS.
Yeesh.
Ryan Fenton
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cylon_Basestar#Battlestar_Galactica_.282004.E2.80.932009.29 It sure matches the description of the star that was seen in last season.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
comets are icy and have tails when close to sun due to outgassing.
Asteroids (minor planets that are stony, metallic, or carbon compound based) can have tails for various reasons, some covered in the article.
this is not just knowledge for knowledge's sake. this is part of efforts to observe planetoids and asteroids to determine if there's risk of collision with Earth, determining feasibility of mining asteroids for resources, or even plain and simple adding to data sets observing how planetoids and asteroids interact with space
a lot of basic science isn't about finding groundbreaking stuff all the time. in fact, if you're doing research only looking for the "groundbreaking stuff", you're doing science wrong. much of science is straight observation. and it is USEFUL.
OK this comet was coming at Earth. Chuck Norris found out. He used a SpaceX ship to fly to the comet. He twisted the comets tail with his powerful karate and made it spin out of control. (which is why it now has 6 tails) Now it will miss the Earth by millions of miles. Once again Chuck Norris has saved humanity!!
I'm old, not dead. Well that's my 2 cents worth, your mileage may vary. I say what I think, not what you want to hear.
Enough with the probing already!
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
And no, this is not a troll or flamebait - it's justified, rational criticism.
Just saying it doesn't make it true.
sic transit gloria mundi
I clicked the link and it's just an image of two guys sitting in a car. What is this about? Why do you waste our time like this? I don't think it was very nice.
Thank you for reading this complaint.
http://static2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100114214048/babylon5/images/a/a4/FirstoneShip_04.png
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
I'm not clicking that, but am happy that Two Girls, One Cup, or whatever it is made your life better.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
If it was spinning then would the discharge be in a spiral(s) rather that individual tails?
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
What do you want? Something engraved in stone tablets? Gold Tablets? Carefully painted in whole wheat linguini?
Anything not coming directly from your deity of choice is going to be a rationalization. Get used to it.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Ask again in 200 years. Then we'll know if understanding asteroids proved useful. It takes a long time for basic research and pushing the boundaries of human understanding to pay off, but some of it eventually does. You know, like the electron, or semiconducting, or liquid crystals, or imaginary numbers. All of that stuff was ivory tower academic fluff at one point. The whole value of "out there" research is that it is in areas that we don't fully understand yet, and therefore have no idea how useful they might eventually become.
Those are deep space kraken!
I like how an AC took the time to politely chastise a logged-in griefer posting sub-moronic Reddit type shit...
Good on you, AC...and I'd give a +1 informative for sparing any of us the clickbait and telling us what it links to
Thank you Dave Raggett
Alien Asteroid Mining. Either that, or the Fithp from the Niven & Pournelle book "Footfall", preparing a dinosaur killer to soften up the Earth.
You present a good defense of the need to track this...
But what about just because it's good to figure things out?!?!
Curiosity drives our evolution now...at least it seems that way...I'm not saying we give out a $10 billion NSA grant to find out what these 'tails' are (my guess is that all comets have multiple tails, this one just imaged right and was of the right type for us to see)...
I'm saying, from a philosophical standpoint, science for science sake is a good human endeavor
Thank you Dave Raggett
This has a few more: Found: A never-before-seen asteroid with six comet-like tails - latimes.com
I can see what you're saying here:
Thank you Dave Raggett
Allready six-tails!
Thats dangerous Naruto, come back!
You dolts! It's the Flying Spaghetti Monster(tm)!
'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
Go lick a socket.
Educated guess? I think it's safe to assume that since it's been observed for awhile that this particular asteroid is between a few months old and 4.6 billion years old. Presumably the paper when published will validate the 200,000 year thought. Maybe somebody was playing pool with planets 200,000 years ago and we're just now finding out about it?
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
"like the electron, or semiconducting, or liquid crystals, or imaginary numbers."
None of which were discovered through by a government program like NASA (Cambridge Univ., Bell Labs, antiquity, respectively). Thanks for supporting my point.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
I mean, this is like looking through a dirty/wet window at a street lamp etc.
They've linked it (I think mainly by orbit) to other debris and to meteorites which they've presumably dated in other ways.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
P/2013 P5 has been ejecting dust periodically for at least five months. Astronomers believe it is possible the asteroid's rotation rate increased to the point where its surface started flying apart.
All they said was, "At least five months". If we worked backwards, how big would this asteroid have been, hundreds, thousands, or even millions of years ago?
Cambridge university received massive amounts of funding for that research, by the way. His point still stands - there is plenty of research paid for by governments around the world which has no seemingly-obvious practical applications, but which ends up creating whole industries in which countless people work, which help improve our daily lives immeasurably. Just because you can't see it doesn't magically make it worthless. In fact, your post was more of an admission of your lack of knowledge than a condemnation of the system of government-sponsored research wasting money.
Lister was probably pished again.
Everytime they observe it, it changes. If they would stop looking at it, the debris will stop.
Down with the astronomers, they are destroying the asteroid.
Exactly. I'm not suggesting everything the EU folks say is true but something like this does make a good case for thei theory in asteroids and comets. I wonder how elliptical the orbit is. That looks a lot like a plasma discharge.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
a lot of basic science isn't about finding groundbreaking stuff all the time
In this case, however, it is literally about groundbreaking stuff.
Pool God! King of the Cues! Prince of the Planet-Potters!
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
BAH.
Obviously it's the Ringmakers of Saturn doin' whatever they do.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
You said that much more politely than I was going to do.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
You've never seen images of a plasma discharge then? The two look nothing alike, and don't even radiate/reflect the same frequencies of light! That's not even "grasping at straws" ridiculous, it's just plain dumb.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
We just received word from Cirocco Jones, the astronaut closest to the phenomenon, that she received a transmission: "y'all are welcome to come visit, but leave the furries at home, because they creep out My titanides. Oh, and heroes only.".
To be, or not to be: isn't that quite logical, Slashdot Beta?
I only listened the first time I played it, so I missed it. So if a brief flash of Playboy model Deanna Brooks nude is offensive to you or those around you, don't click on it. Sorry about that... Or, your welcome.
Some privacy policy Slashdot.
Depends on the plasma. http://www.universetoday.com/21826/swift-detects-x-ray-emissions-from-comets/
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Now **that's** grasping at straws. Much better. BTW, x-rays are not visible to optical telescopes like Hubble.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin