anyone else notice this? http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2010/nov/HQ_M10-157_Chandra_Update.html Nasa holding a press conference about an unusual 'object' in our cosmic neighborhood? This oughta be interesting.... Hope its nothing alien...
It could be anything, it's probably just something that isn't very unusual, but it sounds interesting nonetheless. There's almost no doubt in my mind that other life forms don't exist. I'm surprised we haven't encountered any form of extraterrestrial life yet, I suppose the Universe is so big that it will probably take a while before we find life. Gliese 581g is only 20 light years away from us, I know that sounds like a long way, but it's relatively close to the Earth. It could potentially support life, and even if the conditions aren't perfect, it still shows that it's extremely likely that there are many other planets which have the perfect conditions to support life, when you take into account the sheer number of planets there could be in the universe.
just wondering why they need to hold a press conference about an object. usually when they discover a galaxy or something cool 'looking' they post an image on the nasa site and then move on to the next thing. rarely do they hold a press conference. guess we'll wait and see.
That's a good point. I think it'll probably be something that's a little unusual, but I doubt it's anything to do with extraterrestrial life, otherwise it would probably be leaked and/or announced by Obama Anyway, it'll be interesting to see what it is.
My guess is that anything truly big would be announced by the president, not NASA officials. But perhaps that's only what bad SF movies have taught me to expect.
I'm guessing if they're holding a televised conference then it'll be something they actually recognize. They wouldn't just throw unknown information out there so carelessly.
I think it has to be something a bit more important than throwing an image up of a new galaxy on the website, but less important than something the President would have to announce. It could be something that they've found that they aren't sure of what it is exactly, but its close enough that it could be found by other space agencies - maybe they wanted to make sure they were the first to announce it. ESA finds a lot of cool stuff too....
one more thing - they are calling it an 'exceptional object' 1. Unusual; not typical. 2. Unusually good; outstanding. I'm probably reading way too into this. hahah
If it's merely an exception then it could just be something like a comet that's never passed our way before.
would they need a press conference for that? when was the last time they had a press conference? when they turned pluto into not a planet?
I'm sorry, but this thread has had it's funding decimated, and will be performing no more manned missions.
So they found a baby blackhole: http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2010/nov/HQ_10-299_CHANDRA.html Not exactly an "exceptional object", but I suppose it could help scientists to get a better understanding of how they work.
I hope it's completely alien, but completely contradictory to what we might expect, like an insanely intelligent slug with a mini spacecraft!
