> 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.
"Possibly". Twice. IRAS (it should
have been capitalized!) was launched in
'83 and made all sorts of discoveries in its
11-month lifetime: IR-bright
"cirrus clouds" of interstellar matter, stars
that are brighter in the IR
than in the visual, several comets (notably
IRAS-Araki-Alcock), etc. Its
infrared photometry of the main-belt asteroids
proved invaluable for getting
their diameters and albedos.
> 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.
That was the story at the end of 1983.
Has there been further study?
Undoubtedly. What did it turn out to
be? I haven't heard -- but the
very fact that it has NOT been in the news
for the last dozen years is a
good indication that it turned out to be something
fairly mundane, e.g. an
infrared galaxy or a particularly thick wisp
of cirrus. (Just because I
haven't heard myself doesn't mean that nobody
else knows either, of course.)
> "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.
And that's the bottom line as of 12/31/83.
> 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.
And here's where the author begins speculating.
Probably asked various people
for possible explanations, and something like
this can't immediately be ruled
out. A giant gas ball that far away
would indeed be nearly invisible in the
optical and yet give off IR.
> "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."
Notice the first word in each of Houck's sentences:
IF. Both these sentences
are logically true: given that such an object
is that close, then indeed
a) it would be part of the solar system and
b) there would be huge debates
over its classification. But Houck does
NOT state that the object IS that
close or that he believes it might be.
> 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 supercold 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.
Ah, some hard data! No motion is evident in six months.
> "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.
"Suggests" indeed. "Probably have moved"
indeed. Even if the object were
fixed in space 50 billion miles away, it would
have moved a fifth of a degree
-- a *huge* amount -- simply because IRAS's
vantage point changed as it moved
from one side of the earth's orbit to the
other! Yes, it's *possible* that we
saw it at a "crossing point" in its apparent
path -- where its retrograde loop
intersects itself -- but *extremely unlikely*.
The fact that this is possible
(although highly improbable) means that Houck
couldn't rule it out absolutely;
hence the weasel words.
> 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.
"Speculation" is exactly the right word.
> "It's not incoming mail," Cal Tech's Neugebauer
said. "I want to douse
> that idea with as much cold water as I can."
This is presented near the end of the article!
Almost as if it were a minority
opinion. Neugebauer is using language
as forceful as I've ever seen coming
out of the mouth of a scientist. Stop
the rumors! It just ain't so.
> 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.
"What if?" "Conceivably" "Might be" --
all speculation, probably on the part
of the article's author.
> 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 starts have not begun to shine or so
surrounded by dust that its
> starlight cannot penetrate the shroud.
That's right -- they couldn't disprove it then.
But that doesn't mean that
it's therefore more likely to be close to
us. They "'hope'" it's distant?
Who said "hope"? The word is in quotes
in the article. What was the context?
> "I believe it's one of these dark, young
galaxies that we have never
> been able to observe before," Neugebauer
said.
And indeed, this was the most likely explanation
at the time -- that's why
Neugebauer believes it.
> "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.
True enough. At the time this article
was written (12/31/83), that's all
they knew. Meanwhile, 12-plus years
have passed. What's the end of the
story? If the object turned out to be
just another IR galaxy like all the
others that IRAS found, you won't see a newspaper
article about it. You might
not even find a journal article about it.
The object would be buried in the
IRAS source catalog along with the millions
of others -- identified, catalogued,
and promptly forgotten since there would be
nothing special about it.
I'm not an infrared astronomer. I don't
generally keep up with that subfield.
But if anyone out there can say for certain
what Nancy's mystery object turned
out to be, I know that I for one would like
to hear it!
Bottom line -- it's much ado about very little,
a classic case of speculation
being treated as the most likely scenario.