News from....

More coolness (read: nerdiness) from TMQ:

News from the Edge of the Universe: The Infrared Space Observatory satellite, operational from 1995 to 1998, sent back so much data that some is only now being analyzed. Recently, researchers studying ISO data logs said they had detected, in very deep space, the formation of stars with 100,000 times the luminosity of our sun. The discovery is a serendipitous result of a clever idea by a German researcher named Dietrich Lemke. Operators had programmed the ISO satellite to "slew" its instruments from one point in the heavens to another, in order to collect data on locations that various scientists had deemed promising. Lemke realized that ISO was doing nothing while repointing itself, and asked that the cameras simply be left on during that process; the resulting incomprehensible streams of data were dumped in his and some colleagues' laps. Looking at countless blurry images, Lemke and others had a eureka moment when they came across this. Now it may turn out these ultra luminous suns are ISO's major discovery -- extremely bright stars have been seen before, but these are the first images of such stars forming.

Cosmologists have begun using other telescopes to study the region, trying to imagine what conditions could lead to the formation of objects so big and so bright they defy standard theories of stellar creation. Of course, everyone's assuming the objects Lemke discovered are natural. Readers of TMQ know what when astronomers produce evidence of puzzling events in deep space, such as very powerful gamma-ray bursts, and then astronomers say they are at a loss to explain what natural process could cause the phenomena, TMQ wonders if what we are really seeing is the muzzle flashes of cataclysmic weapons built by advanced civilizations. What if, in these new images from the ISO satellite, we are witnessing the engineering shakedown trials of an extremely advanced artificial power source?

News from the Edge of the Solar System: In September, the Cassini spacecraft in orbit around Saturn took this magnificent photograph of Saturn eclipsing Sol. The camera was facing back toward the inner solar system, so the sun is behind the ringed planet. Look closely at the 10 o'clock position relative to Saturn's disk, and just inside the outermost ring. The little dot you see is -- Earth.