ESO will make a press conference to Announce Discovery in Outer Solar System!

An international team of astronomers, led by Felipe Braga-Ribas (Observatório Nacional/MCTI, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), has used telescopes at seven locations in South America, including the 1.54-metre Danish and TRAPPIST telescopes at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile, to make a surprise discovery in the outer Solar System.

This unexpected result raises several unanswered questions and is expected to provoke much debate. A press conference will be held in Brazil to present the new results and allow opportunities for questions. It is planned for 26th of March at 19.00 CET.

www.eso.org...

I can see already the Niburu partisans putting out their pyramid hats

But of course could be one of the famous missing planets. Tomorrow we will know more.

Or it could be something as mundane as a variation in the Ort cloud we did not expect.

Scientist get excited for things, most normal people would shrug at.

Ill hope for something Monumental, but its probably a surprise in minor planetoids (like pluto) or some other abstract concept they have miss calculated.

While advancing human knowledge, does little for the here and now, just trying to maintain perspective.

Nasa press breifings have burned any excitement outta me for these things.

S&F for later use, would like to know what they discover for sure.
Keep us informed my friend!

Space is vastly unknown to us which makes it that much more interesting

My guesses (which are pure speculation, and based on nothing specific that I heard) include the following:

- Maybe something about the atmospheres of large Kuiper belt objects and dwarf planets (such as Eris, Haumea, Sedna, Quaoar, and the like). I know that ESO has often studied these large kuiper belt objects in the past looking for atmospheres. Last year, the ESO announced that the dwarf planet Makemake lacks an atmosphere.

- Maybe the discovery of additional dwarf planets even larger than Eris or Pluto in the Kuiper belt. Although, this would not be "surprising" considering astronomers are already pretty sure that additional Eris-sized or Pluto-sized objects exist that are yet to be discovered.

-Maybe the discovery of moons around these large kuiper belt objects. It is already known that Eris (which is larger than Pluto) has at least one moon.

- Maybe something that directly confirms the existence of the Oort Cloud. The Oort cloud is believed to exist, but nobody has ever made a direct observation of it.

MH370

NIBURU!
There, I said it first.....
Not that I believe it.

reply to post by Soylent Green Is People


Well the two observatories/telescopes mentioned are both used for searching for exo-planets.

TRAPPIST is also a comet hunter.

My money is on either an unusual comet or a new planetary body.

As for the Oort Cloud, maybe it's a way to start mapping it? I'd imagine it would take years to map it properly, cloud is a misnomer as you know, and spotting all those chunks of rocks so far apart would take forever.

They are not large telescopes so don't expect a really big announcement.

TRAPPIST (TRAnsiting Planets and PlanetesImals Small Telescope) is a 60 cm telescope at La Silla devoted to the study of planetary systems and it follows two approaches: the detection and characterisation of exoplanets around other stars and the study of comets orbiting around the Sun.

reply to post by AlphaHawk


Yes. They used the TRAPPIST, the very large Telescope (VLT) and the New Technology Telescope (NTT) in Chile to search for a potential atmosphere around Makemake as it passes in front of a distant star (they analyze the light from the star as Makemake passed in front of it).

Even though that research found that Makemake has no atmosphere, I jhave a feeling they would attempt to do the same sort of research on the other dwarf planets and other large kuiper belt objects, as the opportunities arise.

Here is the story from a little over a year ago about the ESO and the unsuccessful search for an atmosphere around the dwarf planet Makemake:

Dwarf Planet Makemake Lacks Atmosphere

reply to post by Brucee


I bet a $ that they found something big. Think about it. How does a comet (like ISON) come in on an open parabolic orbit? There have been a few of those. Something has to be "kicking" them in.

reply to post by InverseLookingGlass


Well, there is always the Pioneer anomaly,

Could be that the variance was not an engineering miscalculation from heat venting, and instead a body out there un accounted for.

reply to post by Brucee


Heaven discovered. News at eleven.

What else could cause "much debate"?

I'll keep this thread on my watchlist to catch the news after it happens, thanks for starting it.

Here is the Wikipedia page on the Pioneer Anomaly, mentioned in the thread above. "Heaven Proven To Have Gravitational Pull"

en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by Brucee


Interesting.

S & F for sharing the info. Will definitely be checking back in on this one.

They found Jimmy Hoffa, Lord Lucan and Glen Miller floating in outer space...We always wait for something exiciting, and then its a whole lot of nothing.

InverseLookingGlass
reply to post by Brucee

 

I bet a $ that they found something big. Think about it. How does a comet (like ISON) come in on an open parabolic orbit? There have been a few of those. Something has to be "kicking" them in.

A passing star even more than 5 light years away could cause an Oort Cloud object to be kicked towards our sun -- and the time it takes to get from the Oort Cloud to the inner solar system could be a few million years, so the hyperbolic trajectory comets we see today may have been perturbed a million or more years ago. These comets may have been orbiting in the Oort Cloud at a distance of 2 light years from the sun, so it can take a while for one to get here from there.

There have been several stars in the past that have swept near enough to our solar system to have done this, and there are more stars out there that may do it again. Heck, it's possible that even the current motions of Alpha Centauri may cause a comet to be kicked out of its Oort cloud orbit.

InverseLookingGlass
reply to post by Brucee

 

I bet a $ that they found something big. Think about it. How does a comet (like ISON) come in on an open parabolic orbit? There have been a few of those. Something has to be "kicking" them in.

They're called long period comets, they're quite common, and they come from all directions.

It'll probably be something like an Asteroid with moss or fungi growing on it, which would be be pretty cool.

Aleister
...What else could cause "much debate"? ...

It doesn't take much for scientists to engage in "much debate". It could be something esoteric to science that the common person doesn't really care about.

Things that cause much debate among scientists may be mundane to the average person.

benrl
Or it could be something as mundane as a variation in the Ort cloud we did not expect.

Scientist get excited for things, most normal people would shrug at.

Ill hope for something Monumental, but its probably a surprise in minor planetoids (like pluto) or some other abstract concept they have miss calculated.

While advancing human knowledge, does little for the here and now, just trying to maintain perspective.

Nasa press breifings have burned any excitement outta me for these things.

Or it might be that they have actually found evidence that the Oort Cloud exists. It is currently only a working hypothesis. .....correct?

Maybe Voyager 1 has bounced off a invisible rubber wall and it's on it's way back. ?