Archives
Subject: So what IS NASA about to announce..?
Time: 8:46:00 AM EDT
Author: stuartatk
Now this is interesting...
On the always-excellent Universe Today website, there's a teaser story about a big NASA announcement next week...
This past Wednesday, NASA announced they have scheduled a press conference for next Wednesday, May 14, at 1 p.m. EDT, to reveal the discovery of an object in our galaxy that astronomers have been hunting for more than 50 years.
Hmmm, what could that be?
Well, the internet - okay, the space geek community on the internet! - is already approaching meltdown as the news conference approaches. Inevitably some people think it will be the announcement of the detection of an alien signal. Others think we'll be hearing that NASA has finally discovered a truly Earth-like planet in orbit around a distant star. And others still are confident NASA has found liquid water on Mars, and are setting the stage for the landing of Phoenix on May 25th...
All of them are wrong, I'm pretty sure.
There are clues in the story. The object discovered is in our GALAXY, not solar system, so it's a long, long way away. And an alien signal isn't an "object", is it? And if you read on the story goes on to say...
NASA says the finding was made by combining data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory with ground-based observations...
X-rays, eh? That means it's a very distant, very high energy object. I think that helps us narrow down the possibilities a lot...
My personal prime suspects are:
* A super-massive black hole
* A supernova on the other side of our Galaxy
* Two colliding black holes.
.... but of course, I'm just guessing, and have no idea, really! We'll have to wait until teatime Wednesday to find out... Watch this space! :-)
Written by stuartatk Blog about this entry |
Add to del.icio.us | 
digg this
-
I can just see the NASA duds laughing at us now. They love suspense. Tammy
5/10/08 12:51 PM
-Paul
http://journals.aol.ca/plittl