W... T... F? o_o

What a moron.

netweavr: That "thing" is Mercury itself. That's a time-lapsed photo and Mercury orbits the Sun.

This. And I so very much want it to be a cloaked spacecraft that, apparently, can travel across the galaxy and cloak itself from sight...but not anticipate a solar flare and get out of the way. Also, it's cloaking field is disabled rather easily, so it's kind of a shiat spacecraft for spying on a planet. But still!

Sigh.

I'm not suggesting it was aliens, but it was aliens.

WHOA the guy has a point... but if you look very closely, it was a mouse pointer, not a cylindrical spaceship.

Oh for fark's sake. Magnetic fields, how the fark do they work?

jebusfreak: WHOA the guy has a point... but if you look very closely, it was a mouse pointer, not a cylindrical spaceship.

Shut up Jebus

vartian: This. And I so very much want it to be a cloaked spacecraft that, apparently, can travel across the galaxy and cloak itself from sight...but not anticipate a solar flare and get out of the way.

it could have been a test to see how well it absorbs energy from solar flares. Or perhaps it uses solar flare energy for fuel, and it was just stopping off there to tank up.

I'm not saying it was aliens. But it was aliens.

Farkin' magnetospheres, how do they work?

vartian: netweavr: That "thing" is Mercury itself. That's a time-lapsed photo and Mercury orbits the Sun.

This. And I so very much want it to be a cloaked spacecraft that, apparently, can travel across the galaxy and cloak itself from sight...but not anticipate a solar flare and get out of the way. Also, it's cloaking field is disabled rather easily, so it's kind of a shiat spacecraft for spying on a planet. But still!

Sigh.



You should see what happened to the other two, human.

GAT_00: Oh for fark's sake. Magnetic fields, how the fark do they work?

Bladel: Farkin' magnetospheres, how do they work?

Both wrong. It was an artifact created by filtering the normal sunlight so the relatively dim solar flare could be seen.

The non alien answer (planetary wake) is actually amazing.

Did Yahoo hire someone from Above Top Secret?

Rising_Zan_Samurai_Gunman: so I think it's sort of a combination of both effects

It may be, but it wasn't mentioned in the NRL explanation.

skinnycatullus: Rising_Zan_Samurai_Gunman: so I think it's sort of a combination of both effects

It may be, but it wasn't mentioned in the NRL explanation.

Not to doubt the NRL, but how does a spot facing the sun occur? I'd expect a gap behind it, not in front. Does the damn planet shine that much with all the metal?

But don't worry, we can trust the media to accurately report science!

Monoliths.

Bladel: Farkin' magnetospheres, how do they work?

+1

The time lapse artifact theory doesn't sound right... Mercury doesn't change in that view. If we are seeing 2 days worth of imaging averaged together, how do we get the motion of the flare at all?

I'm sure there is processing involved, and this MIGHT be some sort of artifact resultant from a processing error, but this is not from two days worth of images averaged together... that works great when imaging star systems, but not orbiting planets and active solar flares.

As for planetary wakes... they seem to imply gravity exists like "water" in space, leaving trails as a planet orbits? Not really buying that one either... they are tacking on a whole set of attributes that if proven, would probably revolutionize physics and our understanding of gravity.

The final vaguely scientific theory thrown out there is "magnetosphere" - Mercury has a pretty weak one. A solar flare is usually mostly absorbed into the surface of the planet because it is so weak. Mercury's rotation is slower than our moon, and the planet is freaking small. Even if it were strong enough to have the observed effect on the flare, the event occurs far to distant from the surface to have been caused by all directly measured fields around Mercury (based on actual probes we have sent there)

So... while I'm not convinced this isn't some sort of image processing artifact, I haven't seen anything demonstrating that conclusively here. Other so-called scientific excuses are about as far out as the cloaked alien spacecraft theory.

hawcian: You think image processing artifacts are amazing?

Oh, I was thinking special effects.

As the guy in the video said, it's OBVIOUSLY a manufactured object. What other possible explanation could there be? Duh!

If you simply adjusted your tinfoil to just the right frequency you would see that too.