Undefeated Steak Posted October 15, 2015 Author Share Posted October 15, 2015 Probably nothing but still an interesting read. Astronomers have stumbled across what may be an alien megastructure and they've ruled out almost all other possibilities. It's about 1400 light years away which, bearing in mind one light year is almost 6,000,000,000,000 miles, they're not visiting us anytime soon. Ā Either that, or we're just now seeing the light that's reaching us from a millennium-and-a-half ago, and they're already on the way to layeth the smackdown on us. Ā http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/forget-water-on-mars-astronomers-may-have-just-found-giant-alien-megastructures-orbiting-a-star-near-a6693886.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members SpursRiot2012 Posted October 15, 2015 Paid Members Share Posted October 15, 2015 That's awesome. It'll probably turn out to be something else though Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Coconut Posted October 15, 2015 Share Posted October 15, 2015 IĀ haven't read the linked articleĀ but in the scientific media they've actually proposed several more likely possibilities. The most likely seems to be a comet that's 'recently' been caught in the star's gravity, but that's not gonna sell any papers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Undefeated Steak Posted October 15, 2015 Author Share Posted October 15, 2015 It's still real to me, Coconut.Ā Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Coconut Posted October 16, 2015 Share Posted October 16, 2015 Sorry man. Didn't want to piss on your cornflakes, I was just already pissed off by this story because even the scientific sources used the headline of an alien megastructure before going on to point out that it's one of the least likely explanations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pinc Posted October 16, 2015 Share Posted October 16, 2015 IĀ haven't read the linked articleĀ but in the scientific media they've actually proposed several more likely possibilities. The most likely seems to be a comet that's 'recently' been caught in the star's gravity, but that's not gonna sell any papers. Ā The 'alien megastructure' phrase has come from Jason Wright of Penn State University, who is involved with the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence and was interviewed in this Atlantic piece about the weird star. He's apparently a credible scientist, but he's almost certainly jumped the gun. Ā If their observations are correct then something is causing periodic obsfuscations of up to 22% of the star's luminosity, which is hugeĀ considering a Jupiter sized planet would cause about 1%. Apparently the observations don't match the profile of a huge planet, so it's something else. The arXiv paper that examined the case concluded that the most likely explanation was "the passage of a family of exocomet fragments, all of which are associated with a single previous breakup event." So a shit load of comets with a huge coma trailing in their wake. Ā The paper is here for those interested:Ā http://arxiv.org/abs/1509.03622 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Coconut Posted October 16, 2015 Share Posted October 16, 2015 "the passage of a family of exocomet fragments, all of which are associated with a single previous breakup event." Ā That sounds quite heart-wrenching. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Justice Posted October 16, 2015 Share Posted October 16, 2015 "the passage of a family of exocomet fragments, all of which are associated with a single previous breakup event."Ā Ā 'On the next Blossom'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Undefeated Steak Posted December 20, 2015 Author Share Posted December 20, 2015 Stumbled across this incredible Wikipedia page, "Timeline of the far future."Ā Ā This stood out, "...estimated time until theĀ red supergiantĀ starĀ BetelgeuseĀ explodes in aĀ supernova. The explosion is expected to be easily visible in daylight." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Undefeated Steak Posted January 14, 2016 Author Share Posted January 14, 2016 Great news - Water ice has been discovered on a comet! Ā http://phys.org/news/2016-01-ice-surface-comet-67p.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members SpursRiot2012 Posted January 20, 2016 Paid Members Share Posted January 20, 2016 There may possibly be a ninth planet in our solar system. A planet 10 times the mass of Earth with an atmosphere of hydrogen and helium. It's out beyond Neptune and takes 10,000 - 20,000 years to orbit the sun. They haven't seen it, exactly, but has deduced that its there because science stuff. Cool huh? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Surf Digby Posted January 21, 2016 Paid Members Share Posted January 21, 2016 I saw a brief video on it without sound, and it appears to have an elliptical orbit, with the Sun at one end. I'm not sure how that is, as it's not how I understand orbits to work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Undefeated Steak Posted January 21, 2016 Author Share Posted January 21, 2016 There may possibly be a ninth planet in our solar system. A planet 10 times the mass of Earth with an atmosphere of hydrogen and helium. It's out beyond Neptune and takes 10,000 - 20,000 years to orbit the sun. They haven't seen it, exactly, but has deduced that its there because science stuff. Cool huh? Sorry to be picky man but it's about the size of Neptune and well beyond Pluto. Still totally cool if they're right, and shows how little we still know about the solar system! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members SpursRiot2012 Posted January 21, 2016 Paid Members Share Posted January 21, 2016 Ā There may possibly be a ninth planet in our solar system. A planet 10 times the mass of Earth with an atmosphere of hydrogen and helium. It's out beyond Neptune and takes 10,000 - 20,000 years to orbit the sun. They haven't seen it, exactly, but has deduced that its there because science stuff. Cool huh?Sorry to be picky man but it's about the size of Neptune and well beyond Pluto. Still totally cool if they're right, and shows how little we still know about the solar system! Not picky. Facts are good. I read it on the BBC News app and mixed it up a bit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Coconut Posted January 21, 2016 Share Posted January 21, 2016 This could be very interesting. There actually seems to be some substance to the claims too, which makes a nice change (see alien mega-structure). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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