Post by P(D)enny La(i)ne on Jul 14, 2011 9:18:30 GMT -5
Huge mystery orb spotted
Friday, July 8 1:03 am
By COLIN M. STEWART
A video taken last month atop Mauna Kea has astronomers, online space geeks and conspiracy theorists all playing the guessing game.
At approximately 3:39 a.m. June 22, a mysteriously expanding orb of light in the night sky caught the attention of astronomers at the Subaru telescope, who then alerted astronomers at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope.
"They called, saying they had a 'strange light ball' on their external cameras," said CFH Telescope Director of Science Daniel Devost. "We looked at our camera and there it was."
The hazy bubble of light appeared near the horizon in the northeastern sky and slowly expanded for several minutes until it filled almost the entire frame of the camera, before gradually fading from sight shortly after 3:45 a.m.
The event created a bit of a stir at the time, because it was so unusual compared to the images astronomers deal with on a nightly basis, said Devost.
"It's not a usual phenomenon," he said. "At first, no, we had no clue what it was. All we could conjecture was that it was a shockwave of some sort. It was quite obvious it was a shockwave, but from where, we didn't know."
After the initial excitement, the scientists returned to their work and all but forgot about it, but not before posting online a time-lapse video of the images on the telescope's website at www.cfht.hawaii.edu. Because images are only taken by the camera every 30 seconds, the expansion and disappearance of the light ball takes only a few seconds on the video.
The images themselves were captured by a low-light still camera mounted on the catwalk of the CFHT telescope. It is pointed at the horizon and used to detect clouds and bad weather heading for the telescope.
For the last six months, the camera has had a web page of its own on the site, where, during the evening hours only, it automatically updates every minute to provide viewers with near-realtime imagery.
Even before the expanding orb, the online webcam has prompted some pretty wild theories from viewers, said Devost.
"People send us comments about things they've seen there all the time. One person thought that a plane taking off from Hilo was a UFO. But we can always tie it back to a known phenomenon. Except for this," he said of the odd bubble.
Since the video was posted, various science and astronomy blogs have linked to and discussed the video. Others have copied it and reposted it, generating tens of thousands of hits on sites like Vimeo and YouTube.
They've also generated plenty of speculation, including at least one highly plausible source for the light burst.
Command central for the discussion about the flash appears to be the Starship Asterisk* general astronomy discussion forum at asterisk.apod.com. A variety of explanations, from the likely to the far out, have appeared there.
"My guess is that it is a time portal opening up so the time travellers could return to whatever time period they came from," opined Magik Mandi. "Or it could be Aliens warp jumping back to their dimension."
Another contributor suggested that the slowly expanding ball of light was the reflection of a car's headlights as it made its way up the mountain toward the telescopes.
In general, however, a majority of the posters agreed that the light flash was definitely a manmade phenomenon, either the result of a small explosion or venting of fuel from a craft high in the atmosphere.
"Fuel venting from a spacecraft or discarded upper-stage of a rocket is my guess," said Zeke01 in a June 24 posting.
Further research revealed that a U.S. Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile was scheduled to launch from Vandenburg Air Force Base in California approximately three minutes before the bubble appeared. The general consensus among the bloggers appears to be that as the missile's third stage separated upon reaching the upper atmosphere, it dumped any remaining fuel.
"This rapid fuel dump cuts the missile's thrust at precisely the right time allowing the warhead to be targeted with devastating accuracy at the right spot back on the surface of the Earth," according to the blog Ascending Starseed.
"As the missile is above most of the Earth's atmosphere at this point, when the fuel gas is suddenly ejected it blows away from the missile in a perfect sphere -- which could explain the bubble-like characteristics of the light."
Various sources have confirmed that the launch took place at its scheduled time, but, said Devost, there's no way to know for sure what caused the burst of light. The missile theory is just the best one currently available.
But not the most entertaining, he added.
"The most creative one, quite frankly, was somebody telling us that it was a second sun, and we were witnessing a 'moonrise,'" he said with a laugh. "I'm pretty sure that if there were a second sun, we'd know about it."
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaeDRSznrQI&feature=player_embedded
[/youtube]
Friday, July 8 1:03 am
By COLIN M. STEWART
A video taken last month atop Mauna Kea has astronomers, online space geeks and conspiracy theorists all playing the guessing game.
At approximately 3:39 a.m. June 22, a mysteriously expanding orb of light in the night sky caught the attention of astronomers at the Subaru telescope, who then alerted astronomers at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope.
"They called, saying they had a 'strange light ball' on their external cameras," said CFH Telescope Director of Science Daniel Devost. "We looked at our camera and there it was."
The hazy bubble of light appeared near the horizon in the northeastern sky and slowly expanded for several minutes until it filled almost the entire frame of the camera, before gradually fading from sight shortly after 3:45 a.m.
The event created a bit of a stir at the time, because it was so unusual compared to the images astronomers deal with on a nightly basis, said Devost.
"It's not a usual phenomenon," he said. "At first, no, we had no clue what it was. All we could conjecture was that it was a shockwave of some sort. It was quite obvious it was a shockwave, but from where, we didn't know."
After the initial excitement, the scientists returned to their work and all but forgot about it, but not before posting online a time-lapse video of the images on the telescope's website at www.cfht.hawaii.edu. Because images are only taken by the camera every 30 seconds, the expansion and disappearance of the light ball takes only a few seconds on the video.
The images themselves were captured by a low-light still camera mounted on the catwalk of the CFHT telescope. It is pointed at the horizon and used to detect clouds and bad weather heading for the telescope.
For the last six months, the camera has had a web page of its own on the site, where, during the evening hours only, it automatically updates every minute to provide viewers with near-realtime imagery.
Even before the expanding orb, the online webcam has prompted some pretty wild theories from viewers, said Devost.
"People send us comments about things they've seen there all the time. One person thought that a plane taking off from Hilo was a UFO. But we can always tie it back to a known phenomenon. Except for this," he said of the odd bubble.
Since the video was posted, various science and astronomy blogs have linked to and discussed the video. Others have copied it and reposted it, generating tens of thousands of hits on sites like Vimeo and YouTube.
They've also generated plenty of speculation, including at least one highly plausible source for the light burst.
Command central for the discussion about the flash appears to be the Starship Asterisk* general astronomy discussion forum at asterisk.apod.com. A variety of explanations, from the likely to the far out, have appeared there.
"My guess is that it is a time portal opening up so the time travellers could return to whatever time period they came from," opined Magik Mandi. "Or it could be Aliens warp jumping back to their dimension."
Another contributor suggested that the slowly expanding ball of light was the reflection of a car's headlights as it made its way up the mountain toward the telescopes.
In general, however, a majority of the posters agreed that the light flash was definitely a manmade phenomenon, either the result of a small explosion or venting of fuel from a craft high in the atmosphere.
"Fuel venting from a spacecraft or discarded upper-stage of a rocket is my guess," said Zeke01 in a June 24 posting.
Further research revealed that a U.S. Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile was scheduled to launch from Vandenburg Air Force Base in California approximately three minutes before the bubble appeared. The general consensus among the bloggers appears to be that as the missile's third stage separated upon reaching the upper atmosphere, it dumped any remaining fuel.
"This rapid fuel dump cuts the missile's thrust at precisely the right time allowing the warhead to be targeted with devastating accuracy at the right spot back on the surface of the Earth," according to the blog Ascending Starseed.
"As the missile is above most of the Earth's atmosphere at this point, when the fuel gas is suddenly ejected it blows away from the missile in a perfect sphere -- which could explain the bubble-like characteristics of the light."
Various sources have confirmed that the launch took place at its scheduled time, but, said Devost, there's no way to know for sure what caused the burst of light. The missile theory is just the best one currently available.
But not the most entertaining, he added.
"The most creative one, quite frankly, was somebody telling us that it was a second sun, and we were witnessing a 'moonrise,'" he said with a laugh. "I'm pretty sure that if there were a second sun, we'd know about it."
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaeDRSznrQI&feature=player_embedded
[/youtube]