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

Quadrivium

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?

No, it's much more than that. We can see the aphelion distances of long period comets, so unless the laws of celestial mechanics are fundamentally and completely wrong, yes it exists. Those comets, even the ones with high eccentric orbits that brought them very close to the sun, spent most of their orbit and most of their lives far from the sun at Oort cloud distances. While we have yet to be able to observe any at Oort cloud distances in orbits that do not bring them into the inner solar system, that is simply because there's not enough light reflecting from dark cometary bodies at those distances for us to detect them. Nevertheless, we know that the Oort cloud exists in some form or another because we can see long period comets that came from that region. The exact characteristics and distribution of Oort cloud bodies remains to be seen and probably won't be seen in our lifetimes. But there is a difference between that and simply dismissing the Oort cloud's existence as a mere "working hypothesis."

reply to post by Soylent Green Is People


They said at the edge of our solar system . Voyager only took seven years to reach it why would a comet take a million years ?

Cool. Hope its interesting. Will chack back at a later date.

It stands to reason that if the the discovery is a 'surprise', then it's some object in the outer solar system that they didn't expect to encounter. It was probably discovered with the relatively small TRAPPIST telescope, then examined more thoroughly with the larger instrument.
This suggests that its a fairly conspicuous object, by the standards of professional astronomy. The TRAPPIST, we're told, normally looks for comets. It's mentioned that seven different telescopes were used to study the object. This seems to point to something of unusual interest.

I found these statements interesting from your link in the OP

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.

Note that all information regarding these findings is under strict embargo until 19:00 CET (15:00 BRT) on Wednesday 26 March 2014.

Although highly doubtful that this will be noticed by those not into this sort of thing unless it is Nibiru of course.

AutumnWitch657
reply to post by Soylent Green Is People

 

They said at the edge of our solar system . Voyager only took seven years to reach it why would a comet take a million years ?

Depends on your definition of the edge of the solar system. The heliosphere only extends as far as the Voyager probes have reached, but they are still well inside the sun's gravitational sphere of influence. It just so happens that they're traveling well above escape velocity, so they will never return to the inner solar system like a comet generally would. Oort cloud distances are many times greater than the distances reached by the Voyager probes (plus Voyager is traveling much faster than a typical long period comet would at the same distance from the sun).

AutumnWitch657
reply to post by Soylent Green Is People

 

They said at the edge of our solar system . Voyager only took seven years to reach it why would a comet take a million years ?

The Oort cloud is MUCH farther out than Voyager 1.

Voyager 1 is 127 AUs, or 0.002 Light years away from the Sun.
Objects in the Oort Cloud could be 1 to 2 light years away (500 to 1000 time farther out than Voyager).

Plus, comets from the Oort Cloud may be moving very slowly way out there, even after they are perturbed (they move faster as they get closer to the Sun)

I think astronomy could get pretty boring, with the modern way of looking at a computer screen that is linked in to the actual telescope....I mean looking at barely moving pixel dots for hours on end would not be that visually stimulating. so, when some new pixel dot shows up with a strange and unusual path, they will get overly excited, because, well, that's all there is...a white pixel dot moving past other rather stationary pixel dots

reply to post by ngchunter


An open parabola means the orbital period is infinite. I guess you could say that is long.

Open parabolic orbit basically means it's rounding the sun and never coming back. Some external kick had to be involved. I believe that has strong consensus.

I might remind those reading this, that the Oort cloud is prevailing theory, not proven fact. In addition, the source of the gravitational "kick" for "long period comets" could be a large mass object far away or unknown planetesimals orbiting the Sun outside the orbit of the Kuiper belt. In terms of the prevailing model, and observations of comets during recorded history, the large body orbiting the Sun kicking comets in, is more probable. The dynamics and time scale of passing stars just doesn't fit the time distribution of long period comets.

I'm always open to new data so if someone out there wants to contribute, provide links.

Oy, I'm so tired of announcements about announcements. Just come out with it already.

benrl
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.

I had to go re-read about that. The PA acts like a force vector pointed towards our sun. In other words similar to additional "drag" on the probe, slowing it down.

link to article on pioneer anomoly

It's not clear to me how a mass located outside the radius of the Pioneer could push towards the sun. Anything is possible though. I guess we'll all be looking for the news to pop.

No interest whatsoever to us common folk. IMO short of another race there is NOTHING that will be found that will affect or change my life. When it comes to the Stars and Space us humans are an insignificant dust motes barely capable of polite behavior.

Not that I say stop looking because I do not. I am just going to spend my time doing something that will affect my life.

InverseLookingGlass
reply to post by ngchunter

 

An open parabola means the orbital period is infinite. I guess you could say that is long.

You mean parabolic orbit? Those aren't uncommon either, it doesn't take much to perturb a cometary body at Oort cloud distances into a parabolic or hyperbolic orbit.

Some external kick had to be involved. I believe that has strong consensus.

Passing stars, dwarf planets, gravitational tidal forces, any number of things. Like I said, it doesn't take much at all, just a few meters per second.

I might remind those reading this, that the Oort cloud is prevailing theory, not proven fact. In addition, the source of the gravitational "kick" for "long period comets" could be a large mass object far away or unknown planetesimals orbiting the Sun outside the orbit of the Kuiper belt. In terms of the prevailing model, and observations of comets during recorded history, the large body orbiting the Sun kicking comets in, is more probable. The dynamics and time scale of passing stars just doesn't fit the time distribution of long period comets.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong. The source of perturbation could not be "a" large mass object far away, let alone is that "more probable." Try doing your research before promoting ignorance. As I already said, long period comets, including parabolic and hyperbolic comets, come from all directions. So do explain how "a large body orbiting the sun kicking comets in" is more plausible than random perturbations from a variety of sources? It does not fit the facts, it's not even possible. You are trying to force fit a singular cause that you want to believe in, but it does not fit.

InverseLookingGlass

benrl
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.

I had to go re-read about that. The PA acts like a force vector pointed towards our sun. In other words similar to additional "drag" on the probe, slowing it down.

link to article on pioneer anomoly

It's not clear to me how a mass located outside the radius of the Pioneer could push towards the sun. Anything is possible though. I guess we'll all be looking for the news to pop.

To be honest, anything that could effect the moment with drag, really would alter our view of physics as if it was anything other than the bleed from heat causing the difference.

It would mean, something was powerful enough to effect the probe, while not having any effect on other planetary bodies and would change how gravity effected things, if its not heat bleed, we got something wrong.

Not really Pointing to a planetary body, more a misunderstanding of basic physics around gravity, still equally important.

OR you know heat bleed, just speculating in general though.


ETA:

My personal favorite theory on it is time dilation caused by gravity, which would be crazy.

They have discovered the edge of the snow globe that we are stuck in.

Maybe they finally found "Nemesis", hypothetical red or brown dwarf, beyond the Oort cloud. Nemesis could explain some anomalies, like cycles of mass extinctions and orbit of Sedna. With current models, Sedna shouldn't exist. Sedna has really long and unusually elliptical orbit. It never comes near enough to keep it in Solar system, but it neither goes too far to escape from it. Companion star could explain this.

reply to post by Brucee


It's not niburu..... It's Nevel. Niburu's mentally disabled cousin!

Interesting news, to be watched. I'm marking this thread, if only to see what Phage has to chime in with, when the heated debates start after the announcement.

Yes, as stated earlier by another poster, scientists do get excited about different things than we, lay people. To them, a new angle on a previous theory could be cause for much excitement. Where we would expect to hear of a new doom po-rn scenario.

It does appear a lot of exploration utilizing a wide array of resources has gone into whatever they were working on. So it is important to them, and potentially to us.

Good find...S&F for the heads up.

Des

reply to post by Brucee


Why is it that these bloody announcements come out like they are coming from a game show host? Wait for it now, let's build the suspense, we're going to tell you, just now, a few heartbeats, get that anticipation going.

It's retarded!

It's not a game show or reality TV. Has science sunk this low?

Cheers - Dave

As many have already stated we have different expectations as they do. Something so pointless to us could be very huge to them. That's why I'm not getting excited about this. Now we just have to wait.