It seems that Hubble caught an eyeful of some unusual X shaped object traveling at 11,000 mph and from what NASA has to say, you could infer that it was either some extremely odd shape caused by a collision with another object....or a Klingon Bird of Prey....you be the judge:
(http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/421558main_hs-2010-07-a-print-540.jpg)
X-wing fighter is my guess...
(http://www.eclectric-fx.com/model/images/xwing.jpg) ??
(http://www.randyasplund.com/asplund/modelcov/kbop.jpg) ??
(http://www.collectorsgalleryonline.com/Merchant2/graphics/00000001/bwingmodel.jpg) ??
Could have been any of them....though if that's the case, would that mean that the image was captured "from a galaxy far far away"??
We are talking about the Hubble ya know.... [thumbsup]
LOL! [laugh]
is it really X shaped? looks like a point source that happens to leave a trail that was X shaped in that region
looks more like the death star
It was me, sorry.
Probably one of my satellites burning up.
Quote from: MrIncredible on February 03, 2010, 08:12:30 AM
Probably one of my satellites burning up.
[laugh]
good for business, right?
rocket scientist [roll]
[laugh]
Looks like a big nose. They should name the object after Tycho Brahe.
Quote from: MrIncredible on February 03, 2010, 08:12:30 AM
Probably one of my satellites burning up.
Reminds me "Your momma's so fat, she has smaller fat women orbiting around her!"
You've got to admit though that it sure is...odd...
it looks like the aliens have found us
Aliens are like Chuck Norris... If you can see them, they can see you. If you can't see them, you may only be seconds from death. [laugh]
Quote from: Monster Dave on February 03, 2010, 12:09:05 PM
You've got to admit though that it sure is...odd...
It could just be an asteroid or something and gave off that reflection. Who knows.
However, I would like to think it is an X-Wing Fighter [laugh] [laugh] [laugh]
Quote from: Duck-Stew on February 04, 2010, 07:17:07 AM
Aliens are like Chuck Norris... If you can see them, they can see you. If you can't see them, you may only be seconds from death. [laugh]
[laugh]
Quote from: Bun-bun on February 03, 2010, 11:19:53 AM
Reminds me "Your momma's so fat, she has smaller fat women orbiting around her!"
lol
your momma's so fat, that ben kenobi said, "that's no moon. that's YO MOMMA!"
Quote from: teddy037.2 on February 04, 2010, 11:28:29 AM
lol
your momma's so fat, that ben kenobi said, "that's no moon. that's YO MOMMA!"
hahahahahahahaha thats awesome.
Looks like some sort of Batman symbol. Maybe someone needs help.
11,000 mph is pretty slow. The shuttle orbits at 17,500 mph. It would take a long time to get anywhere at that speed.
Quote from: Rhubarb on February 04, 2010, 07:10:45 PM
11,000 mph is pretty slow. The shuttle orbits at 17,500 mph. It would take a long time to get anywhere at that speed.
so there's an old alien at the helm. that bright spot is the left turn signal that's been on for the past 2 light years.
Quote from: KnightofNi on February 05, 2010, 04:08:58 AM
so there's an old alien at the helm. that bright spot is the left turn signal that's been on for the past 2 light years.
LOL!!! Maybe the ship is going through an 'Interstellar School Zone' and has to go that slow.
It's 2 asteroids that collided
quoted from a astronomy blog (http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/02/02/hubble-captures-picture-of-asteroid-collision/)
Quote
Last week, the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) sky survey program, designed to sweep the heavens looking for near-Earth asteroids, spotted something really weird; an elongated streak that looked as if two asteroids had collided. Just days later, Hubble was pointed at the object, and what it saw was really really weird:
[snip]
This is a false-color image showing the object, called P/2010 A2, in visible light. The long tail of debris is obvious; this is probably dust being blown back by the solar wind, similar to the way a comet’s tail is blown back. What apparently has happened is that two small, previously-undiscovered asteroids collided, impacting with a speed of at least 5 km/sec (and possibly faster). The energy in such a collision is like setting off a nuclear bomb, or actually many nuclear bombs! The asteroids shattered, and much of the debris expanded outward as pulverized dust.
Now, let me just take a moment and say HOLY HALEAKALA WHAT WE’RE SEEING HERE IS THE COLLISION BETWEEN TWO PREVIOUSLY UNDISCOVERED ASTEROIDS THAT EXPLODED LIKE THERMONUCLEAR WEAPONS WHEN THEY IMPACTED!!!
Phew. OK, I feel better. I needed to get that off my chest.
First off, to be clear we’re in no danger from this event. It was really far away (in human terms; 140 million km or 90 million miles â€" the object’s orbit keeps it farther from the Sun than Mars â€" so we’re not about to get pummeled with debris. And while the explosion energy was quite large â€" certainly much larger than any weapon ever detonated on Earth â€" it wasn’t radioactive, in case you’re worried about that sort of thing. This was a kinetic explosion, caused by a high-speed collision, and not an actual detonation of any kind.
Looking at the image, the bright spot to the left is most likely what’s left of one of the two asteroids, a chunk of rock estimated to be a mere 140 meters (450 feet) across. In the press release they’re not clear about the curved line emanating to the right of the nucleus. It may be â€" and I’m spitballing here â€" dust blown back from a stream of chunks, since the tail is broad and appears to originate from that swept curve, and not from the nucleus itself. The other filament perpendicular to the curve is from yet another piece of debris.
Despite how much this looks like a comet, ground-based observations indicate no gas is present, meaning this was from asteroids colliding, not comets, which have significant amounts of ice which turn to gas near the Sun. The collision energy was high enough to produce a lot of gas if any were present. That clinches this being an asteroid impact.
Also, the orbit of the object indicates it’s an asteroid, and it appears to be part of a well-known group of asteroids called the Flora family, which share similar orbital characteristics, and are probably remnants themselves of an ancient breakup of a much larger parent asteroid.
Nothing like this has ever been seen before. Sure, Hubble and about a hundred other telescopes observed the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 slam in to Jupiter in 1994, but that was different than seeing two asteroids hit. Asteroids are small, and very very far apart on average (don’t believe scenes like that in "Empire Strikes Back"), so a collision like this is extremely rare, and catching it from such a great vantage point rarer still. But we have a lot of eyes on the sky, and the more we watch the more we’ll see.
And we’d better. An object 140 meters across hitting the Earth would, to be technical, suck. Hard. Whatever caused Meteor Crater in Arizona, an impact scar over a kilometer across, was itself probably about 40 meters across. An object like 2010 A2, which is three times the diameter, would have 20 -30 times the mass, and do considerably more damage. I’m glad groups like LINEAR are out there patrolling the skies for such things. We need to learn as much as we can about these asteroids, so that we can prevent the next Meteor Crater from occurring.
The above post is proof positive that science is seldom funny. [roll]
Quote from: Duck-Stew on February 05, 2010, 08:06:17 AM
The above post is proof positive that science is seldom funny. [roll]
That is probably true, but it is pretty amazing! 2 asteroids colliding and we got an image right afterwords! That's like shooting a bullet at 1000yds and hitting another bullet in mid flight!
Quote from: Kaveh on February 05, 2010, 08:09:55 AM
That is probably true, but it is pretty amazing! 2 asteroids colliding and we got an image right afterwords! That's like shooting a bullet at 1000yds and hitting another bullet in mid flight!
And getting a clear photo of it with IZ takinbg the photo on an early cell phone camera.
In my opinion, given its speed, it must be a Harley asteroid. Just saying.
Quote from: MrIncredible on February 05, 2010, 09:37:58 AM
And getting a clear photo of it with IZ takinbg the photo on an early cell phone camera.
I don't think it matters what kind of camera he uses ;)
Quote from: teddy037.2 on February 05, 2010, 11:12:22 AM
I don't think it matters what kind of camera he uses ;)
Indeed.
Quote from: Duck-Stew on February 05, 2010, 08:06:17 AM
The above post is proof positive that science is seldom funny. [roll]
i chuckled.
are you saying that the article that was pasted in wasn't funny? :-\
Quote from: KnightofNi on February 07, 2010, 04:47:14 AM
i chuckled.
are you saying that the article that was pasted in wasn't funny? :-\
The thread was humming along just fine. Joke after joke. People throwing out all sorts of alien referrences... And then that 'Science' post pops up and 'BOOM!' the funny was dead. So I just posted up what it seemed like to me. I dunno...
Glad you chuckled!
Quote from: Duck-Stew on February 07, 2010, 05:23:29 AM
The thread was humming along just fine. Joke after joke. People throwing out all sorts of alien referrences... And then that 'Science' post pops up and 'BOOM!' the funny was dead. So I just posted up what it seemed like to me. I dunno...
Glad you chuckled!
my question was posed because i did find the article funny.
i'm worried about my own geekitude.
Quote from: KnightofNi on February 07, 2010, 10:26:05 AM
my question was posed because i did find the article funny.
it was HI-larious!
wait...
Quote from: KnightofNi on February 07, 2010, 10:26:05 AM
i'm worried about my own geekitude.
maybe you should be ;)