NASA: exceptional object in our cosmic neighborhood

Redshift

Since Chandra is an X-RAY observatory, what could this be about?
Anyone heard anything?

MEDIA ADVISORY : M10-157

NASA Announces Televised Chandra News Conference

WASHINGTON -- NASA will hold a news conference at 12:30 p.m. EST on Monday, Nov. 15, to discuss the Chandra X-ray Observatory's discovery of an exceptional object in our cosmic neighborhood.

The news conference will originate from NASA Headquarters' television studio, 300 E St. SW in Washington and carried live on NASA TV. [...]

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2010/nov/HQ_M10-157_Chandra_Update.html

Helix

do they often do regular tv news conferences, or is this out of the ordinary?

charlemont

Should be interesting..

FreudianSlippers

Their recent conferences have been pretty boring.

They do use the word exceptional though. Discovery of an exceptional object might be interesting, people are saying it could be Betelgeuse going supernova, but that wouldn't really be classified as discovery of an exceptional object.

It's likely that they discovered some sort of wandering black hole.

WalterMitty

Alex filipenko is speaking. The public face of SETI but also a supernovae researcher. Interesting.

an Object that is exceptional.

FreudianSlippers

WalterMitty wrote: »

Alex filipenko is speaking. The public face of SETI but also a supernovae researcher. Interesting.

Yep, that's part of the fuel on the fire. He's also big on supermassive black holes. A bit of speculation on the internet about perhaps a traversable wormhole?

drunkmonkey

OisinT wrote: »

perhaps a traversable wormhole?

Excellent, but who's going to jump in first to see if it's working?

PandyAndy

drunkmonkey wrote: »

Excellent, but who's going to jump in first to see if it's working?

Your name is quite apt for the job

up for anything

I asked the question of someone that is reasonably knowledgeable about stuff like this and got this answer.

They have discovered 50% more water on the Moon than previously thought. With water, you can make hydrogen gas. With the oxygen you can make fuel cells between the two. You can also use it as a springboard to Mars. It makes the moon inhabitable.

There is also some sort of Earth like system that has been discovered. In an agency that has been cut to bones by Obama, they have to generate some good news to at least keep the budget they have.

Last time they had a news conference on something like this, it was a yawn.

faceman

I doubt this will be anything more than "ooooh we found a black hole thats really close (but would still take a zillion years in our fastest shuttle". NASA have probably just got new PR people.

SkepticOne

If it turns out to be a nearby but small black hole then, imo, that is very interesting from a scientific point of view even if it doesn't have any immediate impact on people.

If one small object of this type is found nearby then it suggests the possibility that small black holes are abundant in the galaxies. Small black holes have been proposed as a candidate for dark matter.

ihavequestions

up for anything wrote: »

I asked the question of someone that is reasonably knowledgeable about stuff like this and got this answer.

There is also some sort of Earth like system that has been discovered. In an agency that has been cut to bones by Obama, they have to generate some good news to at least keep the budget they have.

Has anyone read Decption Point by Dan Brown? This whole thing is so alike to the book it is crazy!

FreudianSlippers

up for anything wrote: »

I asked the question of someone that is reasonably knowledgeable about stuff like this and got this answer.

That's kind of what makes people so excited about this conference.


They found water on the moon FFS and they just announced it with no pomp on NASA-TV.

For some reason, they've scheduled the conference ahead of time and invited international media to attend. It stands to logic that this announcement has to be bigger than water on the moon (which is pretty big)

The Sparrow

I for one welcome our new insect overlords.



It will probably be a massive letdown and something fairly dull but I will still watch in the hope that it is something amazing. I watch too many movies.

The Hill Billy

OisinT wrote: »

That's kind of what makes people so excited about this conference.


They found water on the moon FFS and they just announced it with no pomp on NASA-TV.

For some reason, they've scheduled the conference ahead of time and invited international media to attend. It stands to logic that this announcement has to be bigger than water on the moon (which is pretty big)

I wouldn't bet on it. See this thread on recent similarly set-up press conference for a Kepler announcement. Turned out to be a damp squib.

tvbrat

I wonder, could it be this

NASA's Fermi Telescope Finds Giant Structure in our Galaxy

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/GLAST/news/new-structure.html

FreudianSlippers

tvbrat wrote: »

I wonder, could it be this

NASA's Fermi Telescope Finds Giant Structure in our Galaxy

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/GLAST/news/new-structure.html

I think the answer is in your post.

Fermi =/= Chandra

Calibos

well, it is indeed about youngest nearby black hole.....Meh

Calibos

'Nearby' = in another galaxy :rolleyes: M100 to be precise. The only mildly interesting bit is the blackhole is only 30 years old

Zillah

Honestly, who the hell would describe something in another galaxy as being in our "cosmic neighbourhood"?

snowstreams

I presume its 30 years since the view of its formation arrived at earth. ie. its actual age 50million years old + 30 years.

Zillah

snowstreams wrote: »

I presume its 30 years since the view of its formation arrived at earth. ie. its actual age 50million years old + 30 years.

This is the case for everything in astronomy. There seems to be a convention whereby events are always described as though from when we started seeing them, rather than when they actually occurred. Which is wise, really. The tangled linguistics alone would be a complete nightmare otherwise.

djhaxman

Zillah wrote: »

Honestly, who the hell would describe something in another galaxy as being in our "cosmic neighbourhood"?

Whats wrong with that? 50 million light years is close by astronomical standards.

Enkidu

snowstreams wrote: »

I presume its 30 years since the view of its formation arrived at earth. ie. its actual age 50million years old + 30 years.

Actually it "now" doesn't exist for us according to general relativity. The only meaningful time frame is its age in our frame based on the light we receive from it. What age it is "now" is meaningless!

Zillah

djhaxman wrote: »

Whats wrong with that? 50 million light years is close by astronomical standards.

Not really, no. Not only is it in an entirely different galaxy, that galaxy isn't even in our local group of galaxies (which is composed of thirty different galaxies).

Take a look at this galactic map.



Observe the relative distances involved. Not only is the blackhole mentioned in this announcement not on this map, it is over five times further away than this map is wide.

Don't get me wrong, it is amazing and wonderful that Nasa detect such things, and they should receive funding to keep doing what they're doing, but calling for a mysterious press conference using sensational language that they know is going to make people think that a rogue neutron star is going to pass through the solar system or something equally exciting is a pretty clear cut case of crying wolf.

djhaxman

I'm aware of the local group. It's still close compared to the Abell 2029 cluster or the galaxies in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, that's my point.

I do agree about the overhyping of these things though, the last Kepler update was a total let down, they lead you to believe there's massive news and then nothing really.

JupiterKid

What a total let down.:(

I know NASA is cash strapped and looking to get as much media attention as possible for their scientific discoveries but this is like the boy who cried wolf.

The public will get jaded with NASA's "announcements" and then a really major finding will be ignored. I though this would have been a biggie like the "evidence for past life on Mars" asteroid one back in 1996.

Bah!:mad:

Plug

Fairly boring news laright. How long is kepler there and it has only found 7 exo planets:rolleyes:

blueyonder

i think i prefered the mystery to the reality. still somewhat interesting

Beeker

Plug wrote: »

Fairly boring news laright. How long is kepler there and it has only found 7 exo planets:rolleyes:

The way Kepler works is over a long period of time {3 years} It has to see or detect more than one transit of a potential planet to confirm its presence. Kepler has been operational about 18 months so far, I would expect a lot more results over the next few years.