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Mystery In Space

September 16, 2008 By Mark Draughn Leave a Comment

I think I’ve read about a dozen science fiction stories that start this way. It’s usually not a good sign.

In a paper to appear in the Astrophysical Journal, astronomers working on the Supernova Cosmology Project report finding a new kind of something that they cannot make any sense of.

…

On February 21, 2006, in the direction of a far-away cluster in Bootes…Hubble began seeing something brighten. It continued brightening for about 100 days and peaked at 21st magnitude in two near-infrared colors. It then faded away over a similar timescale, until nothing was left in view down to 26th magnitude. The object brightened and faded by a factor of at least 120, maybe more.

The good news is, it’s a minimum of 130 light years away..

Or it could be as far away as 11 billion light years. They really don’t know what this is.

I just hope it wasn’t some other civilization’s test of their Large Hadron Collider.

Filed Under: Science

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