Proposal for Next Big Telescope Puzzles Some Astronomers - INFRARED

I guess they think we got some time....

+7

4 doom

There is more in space than meets the eye, in fact the vast majority of matter in space is invisible to our limited light spectrum viewing capability. Molecular/plasma clouds like nebula and star forming regions tend to be extremely large and invisible to our eyes, it's no wonder they need a giant infrared telescope in order to see the sheer scale of such clouds.

Duz it look at da puzzy?

Seem like the one's questioning the need are kind of left in the dark. Maybe they need to brought up to speed, interesting article.

4 cool space news.

That is because they are wanting to study the dark suns all around us that they never knew existed untill recently.

They want to see what's coming because it's already out there.

they can't do a damn thing about it.

the chemtrails ain't gonna save us.

mmmhmmmm

Heh. 10 years.

Dear SS

Not to derail this thread but here you go...

[link to www.sciencedaily.com]

dark matter at the heart of the Sun ....

temperature variations....also on same page.

hence why the need for such a powerful INFRARED scope.

I would post a seperate thread on the issue ...but people like you more SS. I hope this helps.

your friend
Edmond Dantes

and for getting close to the heart of the matter have 5 stars and a

another 10 years.......

never mind looking outwards using sensors outside human capabilities

what about developing devices to allow us humans to see outside our 'given' capabilities right here on Earth?

the frequency spectrum goes both ways

Don't know about you but I could use all the prep time I can get before Ragnarok.

5 stars and bump

SS: 5 stars. I enjoy your posts.

Why? Because this news is cool.

Is this what you're looking for Sickscent?


Thread: <<< UPDATED 04/01/2010 >>> "All I can say is, many of you are close!!!" ***Our Changing Solar System Environment

Before you read the Washington Post Article below you should know the following

In 1982 NASA recognized the possibility of an extra solar planet that was beyond the reach of their best satellite to detect. So NASA set out to change that! Just one year later JPL conveniently had just what NASA needed to make it possible to look deep into our own solar system, (past Pluto's orbit).

The launch of the IRAS satellite shortly there afterwards, located a VERY LARGE object that NASA officials were "bedeviled" by, and that they, "do not want to accept it" what they were now witnessing. Some of the DATA suggested, "that it might actually be moving toward Earth!"

So on January 26, 1983, NASA launched the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) with the results to be overseen by; Dr. Gerry Neugebauer, IRAS chief scientist, Dr. James Houck of Cornell University

The rest of the story is found in the Washington Post story below!




The Washington Post,
31-Dec-1983,
Front Page Article
Mystery Heavenly Body Discovered!

-------------------------------------------------------------​-------------------


A heavenly body possibly as large as the giant planet Jupiter and possibly so close to Earth that it would be part of this solar system has been found in the direction of the constellation Orion by an orbiting telescope aboard the U.S. infrared astronomical satellite.

So mysterious is the object that astronomers do not know if it is a planet, a giant comet, a nearby "protostar" that never got hot enough to become a star, a distant galaxy so young that it is still in the process of forming its first stars or a galaxy so shrouded in dust that none of the light cast by its stars ever gets through.

"All I can tell you is that we don't know what it is," Dr. Gerry Neugebauer, IRAS chief scientist for California's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and director of the Palomar Observatory for the California Institute of Technology said in an interview.

The most fascinating explanation of this mystery body, which is so cold it casts no light and has never been seen by optical telescopes on Earth or in space, is that it is a giant gaseous planet, as large as Jupiter and as close to Earth as 50 billion miles. While that may seem like a great distance in earthbound terms, it is a stone's throw in cosmological terms, so close in fact that it would be the nearest heavenly body to Earth beyond the outermost planet Pluto.

"If it is really that close, it would be a part of our solar system," said Dr. James Houck of Cornell University's Center for Radio Physics and Space Research and a member of the IRAS science team. "If it is that close, I don't know how the world's planetary scientists would even begin to classify it."

The mystery body was seen twice by the infrared satellite as it scanned the northern sky from last January to November, when the satellite ran out of the super cold helium that allowed its telescope to see the coldest bodies in the heavens. The second observation took place six months after the first and suggested the mystery body had not moved from its spot in the sky near the western edge of the constellation Orion in that time.

"This suggests it's not a comet because a comet would not be as large as the one we've observed and a comet would probably have moved," Houck said. "A planet may have moved if it were as close as 50 billion miles but it could still be a more distant planet and not have moved in six months time.

Whatever it is, Houck said, the mystery body is so cold its temperature is no more than 40 degrees above "absolute" zero, which is 459 degrees Fahrenheit below zero. The telescope aboard IRAS is cooled so low and is so sensitive it can "see" objects in the heavens that are only 20 degrees above absolute zero.

When IRAS scientists first saw the mystery body and calculated that it could be as close as 50 billion miles, there was some speculation that it might be moving toward Earth. "It's not incoming mail," Cal Tech's Neugebauer said. "I want to douse that idea with as much cold water as I can."

Then what is it? What if it is as large as Jupiter and so close to the sun it would be part of the solar system? Conceivably, it could be the 10th planet astronomers have searched for in vain. It also might be a Jupiter-like star that started out to become a star eons ago but never got hot enough like the sun to become a star.

While they cannot disprove that notion, Neugebauer and Houck are so bedeviled by it that they do not want to accept it. Neugebauer and Houck "hope" the mystery body is a distant galaxy either so young that its stars have not begun to shine or so surrounded by dust that its starlight cannot penetrate the shroud.

"I believe it's one of these dark, young galaxies that we have never been able to observe before," Neugebauer said. "If it is, then it is a major step forward in our understanding of the size of the universe, how the universe formed and how it continues to form as time goes on."

The next step in pinpointing what the mystery body is, Neugebauer said, is to search for it with the world's largest optical telescopes. Already, the 100-inch diameter telescope at Cerro del Tololo in Chile has begun its search and the 200-inch telescope at Palomar Mountain in California has ear-marked several nights next year to look for it. If the body is close enough and emits even a hint of light, the Palomar telescope should find it since the infrared satellite has pinpointed its position.
Quoting: Sickscent

Yep, found this article a while ago...

There are many, even from NASA press releases, that have this info in them...

This comes directly from the NASA website. It is a press release from the Royal Astronomical Society labeled 'for immediate release'. It was released in 1999.


"Dr Murray notes that the comets reaching the inner solar system include a group coming from directions in space that are strung out along an arc across the sky."


[link to neo.jpl.nasa.gov]

ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY PRESS NOTICE

Date: 7 October 1999
For immediate release

Ref. PN 99/32
Issued by: Dr Jacqueline Mitton
RAS Press Officer
Phone: Cambridge ((0)1223) 564914
FAX: Cambridge ((0)1223) 572892
E-mail: [email protected]

RAS Web: [link to www.ras.org.uk]

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

CONTACT FOR THIS RELEASE

Dr John B. Murray ([email protected])
Phone: 01908 652118

Dept. of Earth Sciences, The Open University,
Milton Keynes MK7 6AA

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

PUZZLE OF COMETARY ORBITS HINTS AT LARGE UNDISCOVERED OBJECT
Intrigued by the fact that long-period comets observed from Earth seem to follow orbits that are not randomly oriented in space, a scientist at the Open University in the UK is arguing that these comets could be influenced by the gravity of a large undiscovered object in orbit around the Sun. Writing in the issue of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society published on 11th October, Dr John Murray sets out a case for an object orbiting the Sun 32,000 times farther away than Earth. It would, however, be extremely faint and slow moving, and so would have escaped detection by present and previous searches for distant planets.

Long-period comets are believed to originate in a vast 'reservoir' of potential comets, known as the Oort cloud, surrounding the solar system at distances between about 10,000 and 50,000 astronomical units from the Sun. (One astronomical unit is approximately the average distance between the Earth and the Sun.) They reach Earth's vicinity in the inner solar system when their usual, remote orbits are disturbed. Only when near to the Sun do these icy objects grow the coma and tails that give them the familiar form of a comet. Dr Murray notes that the comets reaching the inner solar system include a group coming from directions in space that are strung out along an arc across the sky. He argues that this could mark the wake of some large body moving through space in the outer part of the Oort cloud, giving gravitational kicks to comets as it goes.

The object would have to be at least as massive as Jupiter to create a gravitational disturbance large enough to give rise to the observed effect, but currently favoured theories of how the solar system formed cannot easily explain the presence of a large planet so far from the Sun. If it were ten times more massive than Jupiter, it would be more akin to a brown dwarf (the coolest kind of stellar object) than a planet, brighter, and more likely to have been detected already.

So Dr Murray speculates that such an object, if it exists, will be planetary in nature and will have been captured into its present orbit since the solar system formed, even though the probability of such an event seems low on the basis of current knowledge.

Though a large, distant planet is a fascinating possibility and the evidence is suggestive, Dr Murray nevertheless stresses that he is not ruling out other possible explanations for the observed clustering of the comet orbits.

Thread: BURIED PROOF OF NEMESIS?! Directly from NASA website: comets reaching the inner solar system include a group strung out along an arc across the sky

Another Sick post! And kudos to the other poster who added info about IRAS. I was going to say I thought we had an infrared telescope up there already. Where are the pics from those?

We have a lot of infrared up there now...