NASA about to make BIG Announcement!

bipedalhumanoid · **Joined:** Fri Feb 09, 2007 1:55 pm **Posts:** 2675

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2008/may/HQ_M08089_Chandra_Advisory.html wrote:

MEDIA ADVISORY : M08-089 NASA to Announce Success of Long Galactic Hunt WASHINGTON -- NASA has scheduled a media teleconference Wednesday, May 14, at 1 p.m. EDT, to announce the discovery of an object in our Galaxy astronomers have been hunting for more than 50 years. This finding was made by combining data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory with ground-based observations.

To participate in the teleconference, reporters must contact the Chandra Press Office at 617-496-7998 or e-mail mwatzke@cfa.harvard.edu. Live audio of the teleconference will be streamed online at:

http://www.nasa.gov/newsaudio

A video file about the discovery will air on NASA Television on May 14. NASA TV is carried on an MPEG-2 digital signal accessed via satellite AMC-6, at 72 degrees west longitude, transponder 17C, 4040 MHz, vertical polarization. NASA TV is available in Alaska and Hawaii on AMC-7 at 137 degrees west longitude, transponder 18C, at 4060 MHz, horizontal polarization.

For information about NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory on the Web, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/chandra

- end -

What do you suppose it might be? My bet is an earth-like extra-solar planet.

Ygern · **Posted:** Fri May 09, 2008 4:30 pm

Wow, that is exciting! They're being very coy about it though!

I've been obsessively interested in space since the age of about 5, so I'll make a point of following this story. Between this and the LHC, Summer 2008 is going to go down in history as a time of great science discoveries.

Could it be a black hole maybe?

Poll: how many of you think they've photographed God? :lol:

bipedalhumanoid · **Joined:** Fri Feb 09, 2007 1:55 pm **Posts:** 2675

Ygern wrote:

Wow, that is exciting! They're being very coy about it though!

I've been obsessively interested in space since the age of about 5, so I'll make a point of following this story. Between this and the LHC, Summer 2008 is going to go down in history as a time of great science discoveries.

Could it be a black hole maybe?

Poll: how many of you think they've photographed God? :lol:

They've already confirmed at least one super-massive blackhole in the centre of our galaxy. Obviously you can't see them because light doesn't escape but by tracking the trajectories of stars they can calculate that the gravity well required to create the gravitational influence exerted on the stars can only be provided by an extremely massive black hole.

FXR · **Posted:** Fri May 09, 2008 9:19 pm

They found Russels Teapot....

Ygern · **Posted:** Mon May 12, 2008 12:55 pm

@ Bipedalhumanoid:

How would they establish whether a planet was earth-like with the data they are receiving?

(This is not to argue with you - its a genuine question

)

bipedalhumanoid · **Joined:** Fri Feb 09, 2007 1:55 pm **Posts:** 2675

Ygern wrote:

@ Bipedalhumanoid:

How would they establish whether a planet was earth-like with the data they are receiving?

(This is not to argue with you - its a genuine question

)

The optical data they are receiving from the ground would enable them to tell if a star is wobbling. The wobble action of the star would tell them there are planets and how massive they are. To the best of my knowledge that's how they've detected the planets to date. not sure where the X-ray data would come into the picture.

I guess it could be a black hole. They could be about to announce the first direct observation of one by detecting something in the x-ray band but then I don't see how the optical data would be usefull unless there is a nearby star getting torn to pieces by the invisible black hole.

Tis all speculation. I feel like a kid on christmas day waiting to open his presies. Can't wait to find out what it's all about

.

psillery · **Posted:** Mon May 12, 2008 2:13 pm

My understanding is that they have only ever discovered "Jupiter" type planets up until now as Earth sized ones are too small to locate.

Maybe there has been a breakthrough in this regard?

Ygern · **Posted:** Mon May 12, 2008 2:18 pm

They've definitely established other planets before.

A planet that might be capable of supporting life would be the ultimate find, but I didn't think we had the technology yet to confirm this - mostly it seems they are making educated guesses based on how close their orbit is to their star and how large they are as to whether they are gas giants etc.

Even this article suggests that they would be detecting size rather than anything more definite.

Psillery - the last article I linked to suggests a method that might be able to detect earth-sized planets.

bipedalhumanoid · **Joined:** Fri Feb 09, 2007 1:55 pm **Posts:** 2675

Ygern wrote:

They've definitely established other planets before.

A planet that might be capable of supporting life would be the ultimate find, but I didn't think we had the technology yet to confirm this - mostly it seems they are making educated guesses based on how close their orbit is to their star and how large they are as to whether they are gas giants etc.

Even this article suggests that they would be detecting size rather than anything more definite.

Psillery - the last article I linked to suggests a method that might be able to detect earth-sized planets.

Yes that is also my understanding. By 'earth-like' they mean a terrestrial planet (Like Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars).

I do think it is more than an educated guess though. Each planet in orbit would cause a different sized wobble in the star due to the gravitational influence of the planets. The timing of the wobble will give them a fairly accurate idea of the size of the orbit and thus distance from the star. Then the size of the wobble gives them the mass of the planet.

So they'd have...

Mass of the planet
Size of the planet
Size of the orbit
Distance from the star
Whether or not the planet is terrestrial or a gas giant

With this information they can tell if the planet is situated within the goldi-locks belt which is a requirement if it is ever going to support life.

bipedalhumanoid · **Joined:** Fri Feb 09, 2007 1:55 pm **Posts:** 2675

psillery wrote:

My understanding is that they have only ever discovered "Jupiter" type planets up until now as Earth sized ones are too small to locate.

Maybe there has been a breakthrough in this regard?

This was true until relatively recently.

lostexpectation · **Joined:** Wed Feb 07, 2007 11:28 pm **Posts:** 1993

yeah as someone was saying on boards , he was suggesting the may have found a blachkole at the center of our galaxy via chandra xray detectors.

ETA

huh they already found it
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,351470,00.html

i guess now they'll say they've proved it

or this

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20080512/ ... XsWNbQOrgF

bipedalhumanoid · **Joined:** Fri Feb 09, 2007 1:55 pm **Posts:** 2675

Well, we're going to find out today

Tho not till about 6pm.

lostexpectation · **Joined:** Wed Feb 07, 2007 11:28 pm **Posts:** 1993

http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/2006/ ... _be_a.html

liquid h20?

http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2006 ... ent-today/

both say it not that big, just overblown

bipedalhumanoid · **Joined:** Fri Feb 09, 2007 1:55 pm **Posts:** 2675

lostexpectation wrote:

http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/2006/03/will_there_be_a.html

liquid h20?

http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2006 ... ent-today/

both say it not that big, just overblown

Those links relate to an announcement made regarding the cassini probe in 2006. Today's announcement relates to a discovery made using the Chandra X-Ray observatory.

The more I think about it the more I think this has nothing to do with black holes or planets. They have already made indirect observations to confirm the existence of the supermassive black hole at the centre of the galaxy.

My final guess is they've found evidence of anti-matter ie. a signature suggesting matter/anti-matter anihalation.

My next guess would be that it has something to do with dark matter but I'll lock in A.

Ygern · **Posted:** Wed May 14, 2008 12:39 pm

The LHC are hoping for evidence of dark matter to turn up in the course of their mini Big Bang experiments.

See herefor a talk by Brian Cox at TED

Atheist Ireland Forum

NASA about to make BIG Announcement!

Who is online