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'Something Weird Is Going On' as New Horizons Approaches Distant Asteroid (popularmechanics.com)
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft passed Pluto in 2015. But now it's getting strange readings while approaching its next destination, the Ultima Thule asteroid.
Popular Mechanics reports: Ultima Thule appears to not have a light curve, which is perplexing scientists... Asteroids like Ultima Thule reflect sunlight -- that's why they're bright spots instead of dark spots -- but the amount of light they reflect depends on how much of their surface is facing the Sun. The bigger their surface area, the brighter they become. Small asteroids like Ultima Thule aren't perfectly round, which means how much of their surface is facing the Sun changes as they rotate....
Ultima Thule isn't changing its brightness at all. New Horizons has been watching Ultima Thule for three months and hasn't spotted any brightness change, which is really odd. Ultima Thule is definitely not spherical -- astronomers determined that a year ago -- so why doesn't its brightness change?
One theory is that the New Horizon's probe is perfectly aligned with the asteroid's axis of rotation, so it's only seeing Ultima Thule's north (or south) pole. Another is that the asteroid is surrounded by dust clouds that "even out" its light curve. But that usually only happens when asteroids are near the sun and heating up, whereas Ultima Thule "is cold and dark and shouldn't have any dust...."
"Fortunately, we might not have to wait long for an answer to this problem. New Horizons will fly by Ultima Thule on January 1, and should give us high-resolution photos of the entire system," the article concludes. "With any luck, those photos will solve the mystery."
Popular Mechanics reports: Ultima Thule appears to not have a light curve, which is perplexing scientists... Asteroids like Ultima Thule reflect sunlight -- that's why they're bright spots instead of dark spots -- but the amount of light they reflect depends on how much of their surface is facing the Sun. The bigger their surface area, the brighter they become. Small asteroids like Ultima Thule aren't perfectly round, which means how much of their surface is facing the Sun changes as they rotate....
Ultima Thule isn't changing its brightness at all. New Horizons has been watching Ultima Thule for three months and hasn't spotted any brightness change, which is really odd. Ultima Thule is definitely not spherical -- astronomers determined that a year ago -- so why doesn't its brightness change?
One theory is that the New Horizon's probe is perfectly aligned with the asteroid's axis of rotation, so it's only seeing Ultima Thule's north (or south) pole. Another is that the asteroid is surrounded by dust clouds that "even out" its light curve. But that usually only happens when asteroids are near the sun and heating up, whereas Ultima Thule "is cold and dark and shouldn't have any dust...."
"Fortunately, we might not have to wait long for an answer to this problem. New Horizons will fly by Ultima Thule on January 1, and should give us high-resolution photos of the entire system," the article concludes. "With any luck, those photos will solve the mystery."
,,,alien spaceship theories.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
As the apocryphal quotation goes, "The most exciting phrase in science is not ‘Eureka!’ but ‘That’s funny ’."
But it is a bit far out to be gravitationally locked to the sun.
It can't be covered by an ocean as it is not perfectly round, so there would be islands/continents that would have a different albedo. What would be liquid that far out (ie cold) ?
Aliens obviously! ;-)
Maybe the camera is broken and the computer has been sending back the same pixels for three months to cover it up.
And all real scientists live to hear, or better, speak just that phrase. It's the payoff for all that work.
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
"‘It’s the wild colour scheme that freaks me out,’ said Zaphod, whose love affair with the ship had lasted almost three minutes into the flight. 'Every time you try and operate these weird black controls that are labeled in black on a black background, a little black light lights up in black to let you know you’ve done it.’" - Douglas Adams
All good sci-fi books start with someone looking at a graph and saying "that's odd." Then, when their colleagues look at, they say "that's really odd."
Yeah.. any time I hear people complaining that scientists are dogmatic and hate anything new or novel, I wonder if they have ever actually met a scientist outside having their ideas debunked.
For this reason, God sends them a powerful delusion(operation of wandering)(planet) so that they will believe the lie?
Mystery Red of the Great American Eclipse
NASA Allais Effect Eclipse Experiment
Some live reports would be nice but someone's not getting his wall for Christmas so maybe we'll get to see the archived data later.
Are you one of those Electric Universe nutters? If so, please get a real education. Until then, please stop.
They tend to be able to convince themselves out of most problematic observations
No, "something weird is going on" could mean your probe will be destroyed by a cloud of pebbles. This mystery has got to be making the route planners nervous.
True, a cloud of pebbles would be an interesting find out this far, but it also means we won't know much more about it for at least another 20 years.
Table-ized A.I.
It's a Steel Barrier , not an Iron Curtain.
Really.
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
God continuously invents science
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Spoon!
You have to postulate the possibilities. - smug.
Maybe the virtual world where we live can only maintain a logically consistent simulation when the observer is "inside" the "solar system"?
If something goes "physically out", then empirical and sensory experience is reduced in quality?
Maybe the end game scenario is when we collectively conclude we are in a simulation? Maybe we are almost winning...
Well where I left experimental science in high school it was more like math, you either solved it right and got points or you did it wrong and at best got a partial score. At no point did "oh, that's funny" mean anything other than "oh my god, we'll have to do it again". Sometimes we just gave up finding the problem and invented the results we should have gotten instead. It's not until you hit the research stage that you go off the rails and start looking at questions where the answers aren't already preordained by a 100+ year old comprehensive theory with a mountain of proof. So if they don't know any actual scientists that might be their perception of it.
The other main reason people say it is because they have some kind of warped perception of where the burden of proof should be. Like it's totally okay to believe in aura therapy or your chakra or yin-yang etc. even though it doesn't show up on any scanners known to man. Screw randomized trials, if you believe in God then prayer helps. Well except that you live or die as often as the Muslim in the next bed. There's so many nutters who want to define their own reality and don't like it when facts get in the way.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Simple, an alien spacecraft, like the Oumuomua
For this reason, God sends them a powerful delusion(operation of wandering)(planet) so that they will believe the lie.
Mystery Red of the Great American Eclipse
It has blood on it!
NASA Allais Effect Experiment
God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie.
Mystery Red of the Great American Eclipse
It has blood on it!
NASA Allais Effect Eclipse Experiment
My commonly used versions are:
What the fucking fuck.
Well, that's problematic.
I usually cycle through the two until I figure it out.
Am I the only person who thinks of Space 1999 whenever Ultima Thule is mentioned? See episode: Death's other Dominion
I know nothing about astrophysics, so this might be very stupid, but who knows...
then it could be intelligent.
[($)]
We have information suggesting that it may be a binary contact pair, could it be tidally locked to the sun and thus have no light curve? Another possibility is that being out so far with so little gravitational interference maybe it is encased in a relatively uniform "snowdrift" of ice and dirt. Either way we should know in a week or so, hopefully it will be a heck of a show no matter what.
an alien Starbucks.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
I thought that one of the attractions of visiting these far-away Kuiper Belt objects, was that they were "pristine", unaffected by collisions or the heat of the sun. And there is a general belief that such objects may have a lot of organic compounds in their makeup, with the result that they may be very dark and have little reflectivity.
If the albedo is low enough, it may simply reflect too little light to detect a decent light curve. Regardless of it's shape, orientation or spin.
> Ultima Thule appears to not have a light curve, which is perplexing scientists...
After the dinosaurs don't have feathers which lasted 200+ years as a science fact, I've more skeptical of proven to be true science facts.
'Over the next X years' is/will become the same as 'Protecting the children' as a key to when to start disbelieving the speaker/paper/article/reporter/expert.
Think of this the next time your co-worker trades in his 3 year old car for a new car while you drive a 10+ year old one.
You're like the "all geology is local" dogmatists who ridiculed Wegener's continental drift theory for decades.