Hubble Finds Unidentified Object in Space, Scientists Puzzled

I must say thoughm if you compare the two images, there are numerous more dots on the second image than on the first...granted not half as big as the original, but still.
 
Capn' $qu!ff said:
CAT: So, what is it?
KRYTEN: I've never seen one before -- no one has -- but I'm guessing it's a white hole.
RIMMER: A _white_ hole?
KRYTEN: Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. A black hole sucks time and matter out of the universe a white hole returns it.
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:D

LISTER: So, that thing's spewing time back into the universe? (He dons
his fur-lined hat.)
 
Delvis said:
I must say thoughm if you compare the two images, there are numerous more dots on the second image than on the first...granted not half as big as the original, but still.
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Yeah you're right, I think that's just background noise, the fact that they say they observed the object in question increasing in intensity and then decreasing over 100 days separates it from background noise though :)
 
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Col_M said:
Yeah you're right, I think that's just background noise, that fact that they say they observed the object in question increasing in intensity and then decreasing over 100 days separates it from background noise though :)
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True :)

But you can see why there is negativity towards it I guess.
 
i don't know what all the fuss is. Positions of things change in space, admittedly very little at that distance but things do happen, planets fall out of orbits, a giant slow moving comet was going across it blocking the light before, etc, etc, etc.

Space, is very very big, we've not nearly seen all of it before, this isn't the first or last new thing they've found, its not automatically something magical or fantastic. When you keep checking new area's of an infinite amount of space you will constantly see new things, big freaking shock.

Nasa, and lots of smart people haven't said, it might be a space ship, they said they don't know. Theres billions, trillions, infinite infact dots in the sky we will find. The one almost certain fact though is something so massively far away is almost impossible to be anything other than a star, a space ship would simply be impossible to see, the ship would need to be bigger than a star and generate as much power as a star to produce visible light that far out.

Frankly, the most likely cause IMHO, and I call the idea, is its a binary star system, something unblocked the system from view for 100 days, and one star was blocked from view, slowly as they orbit around the 2nd star came out from behind the first star a little at a time and as it did so, the brightness appeared to increase as light from 2nd star is added to the first star. Then whatever was blocking the view, moved back into the line of vision and out goes the light.
 
Teki187 said:
What-Was-It.jpg


This is exactly why we send astronauts to risk their life to service Hubble: in a paper published last week in the Astrophysical Journal, scientists detail the discovery of a new unidentified object in the middle of nowhere. I don't know about you, but when a research paper conclusion says "We suggest that the transient may be one of a new class" I get a chill of oooh-aaahness down my spine. Especially when after a hundred days of observation, it disappeared from the sky with no explanation. Get your tinfoil hats out, because it gets even weirder. The object also appeared out of nowhere. It just wasn't there before. In fact, they don't even know where it is exactly located because it didn't behave like anything they know. Apparently, it can't be closer than 130 light-years but it can be as far as 11 billion light-years away. It's not in any known galaxy either. And they have ruled out a supernova too. It's something that they have never encountered before. In other words: they don't have a single clue about where or what the heck this thing is.
The shape of the light curve is inconsistent with microlensing. In addition to being inconsistent with all known supernova types, is not matched to any spectrum in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey database.
​
The only thing the astronomers—working on the Supernova Cosmology Project—can tell is that it appeared all of the sudden in the direction of a cluster with the catchy name of CL 1432.5+3332.8, about 8.2 billion light-years away. Hubble caught a spark that continued to brighten during a 100-day period, peaking at the 21st magnitude, only to fade away in the same period of time.

Source - http://gizmodo.com/5049896/hubble-finds-unidentified-object-in-space
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/community/skyblog/newsblog/28244844.html?pageSize=0
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0809/0809.1648v1.pdf

Spooky!
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Not really spooky, quite exciting though! It's always good to discover a new class of star or natural occurrence.

A couple of points though; It's hard to determine the distance of something when you don't know what it is and you can't observe it for long enough for a large enough shift in either it's or our position. If you'd like to know more google something like "measure distance stars".

When they say the object appeared.... It doesn't mean that's when it travelled there, it means that is when it became visible to us/started emitting light in our direction. This in itself is not rare/new as lots of objects in the sky vary in brightness over short periods. It's certainly not going to turn out to be an alien ship, it's going to be a new type of star etc.

Reminds me a bit of when they discovered gamma ray burster's. When they were first observed it appeared that the explosions were emitting more energy then they thought was in the Galaxy, loads of people started thing they were watching some kind of interstellar war going on. In the end of course it was shown to be completely natural in origin.
 
drunkenmaster said:
i don't know what all the fuss is. Positions of things change in space, admittedly very little at that distance but things do happen, planets fall out of orbits, a giant slow moving comet was going across it blocking the light before, etc, etc, etc.

Space, is very very big, we've not nearly seen all of it before, this isn't the first or last new thing they've found, its not automatically something magical or fantastic. When you keep checking new area's of an infinite amount of space you will constantly see new things, big freaking shock.

Nasa, and lots of smart people haven't said, it might be a space ship, they said they don't know. Theres billions, trillions, infinite infact dots in the sky we will find. The one almost certain fact though is something so massively far away is almost impossible to be anything other than a star, a space ship would simply be impossible to see, the ship would need to be bigger than a star and generate as much power as a star to produce visible light that far out.

Frankly, the most likely cause IMHO, and I call the idea, is its a binary star system, something unblocked the system from view for 100 days, and one star was blocked from view, slowly as they orbit around the 2nd star came out from behind the first star a little at a time and as it did so, the brightness appeared to increase as light from 2nd star is added to the first star. Then whatever was blocking the view, moved back into the line of vision and out goes the light.
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"In addition to being inconsistent with all known supernova types, is not matched to any spectrum in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey database."

Surely then it would exclude binary stars...

If it's a binary star it's no binary star that they've ever encountered...
 
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VortexA1 said:
"In addition to being inconsistent with all known supernova types, is not matched to any spectrum in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey database."

Surely then it would exclude binary stars...

If it's a binary star it's no binary star that they've ever encountered...
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The binary nature is just a possible example of what could make an object appear and disappear, other possibilities are (but not limited to) that it's something feeding (i.e. matter falling into or onto a neutron star/black hole) or maybe a type of pulsar.

I'd need to read the whole paper to see what actually makes it different from anything observed before but I'm pretty certain that it's not going to be something fantastic (to normal people anyway), it's probably just got a very slightly different emission spectra then other stars.
 
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