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Old January 9th 09, 05:35 AM posted to alt.astronomy
BradGuth
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Posts: 21,544
Default An alien civilization has just turned on its own version of theLarge Hadron Collider and blown itself up.

On Jan 8, 6:48*pm, chatnoir wrote:
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2...ght-flash.html

Bright Flash in Heavens Has No Earthly Explanation
By Clara Moskowitz January 06, 2009 | 4:43:33 PMCategories: Astronomy,
Space

File this one under: Things that go flash in the night.

While conducting a routine search for distant supernovae, astronomers
observed a bright burst of light that they can’t account for. On Feb.
21, 2006, the Hubble Space Telescope first imaged the source of light,
which continued to brighten over the next 100 days, peaked, and then
finally faded to oblivion over another 100 days.

The time scale of brightening, as well as the particular
characteristics of the colors of light seen, do not match any known
astronomical phenomena.

“So far it’s unlike anything previously observed,” said Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory astronomer Kyle Barbary during a press
briefing Tuesday at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Long
Beach, California.

While supernovae normally take three weeks to reach their peak
brightness (or at most 70 days), this object, called SCP 06F6, took
significantly longer. During the span that the light was visible, the
team observed it with not only Hubble, but also with the Very Large
Telescope in Chile and the Subaru Telescope and W.M. Keck Observatory
in Hawaii.

The scientists can tell very little about the source of the flash —
not even how far away it is, or how intrinsically bright. That means
it could have come from some event in our own galaxy, or from some
distant region of the universe. There is no visible star or galaxy at
the site of flash to offer hints of what caused it.

Since the astronomers first announced the mystery sighting, many
experts have offered guesses about what type of phenomenon could be
behind it. Suggestions include a new type of supernova (such as the
collapse and explosion of a unique star), a collision between a white
dwarf star and a black hole, or even an exotic star made out of
hypothetical “mirror matter.”

But none of the explanations are completely satisfying, Barbary said.
“None of these are conclusive. There are sort of problems with each
one that make none of them a sure bet.”

Some are even joking that it could have been caused by an alien
civilization that had just turned on its own version of the Large
Hadron Collider and blown itself up.

Since the object has completely faded away from sight by now, options
for getting to the bottom of the mystery are slim.

“I think probably the only way to learn much more is to maybe find
more of these things and look for similarities,” Barbary said.


There's actually lots of images of once upon a time alien
civilizations that tried out their LHC, and subsequently paid the
ultimate price. We could also consider it a cosmic hazing by God.

~ BG