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The European Southern Observatory (ESO) will announce an "unprecedented discovery" on Monday:
ESO will hold a press conference on 16 October 2017 at 16:00 CEST, at its Headquarters in Garching, Germany, to present groundbreaking observations of an astronomical phenomenon that has never been witnessed before.
[...] By registering for the conference, journalists agree to honour an embargo, details of which will be provided after registration, and not to publish or discuss any of the material presented before the start of the conference on 16 October 2017 at 16:00 CEST.
LEAK IT!
Update: The announcement will be related to gravitational waves, and may involve a neutron star collision, which would also be visible using optical methods.
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European Southern Observatory to Announce "Unprecedented Discovery" on Monday
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belief, n:
Something you do not believe.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Fluffeh on Friday October 13 2017, @04:30AM (4 children)
From the statement that is released now: The event will be introduced from ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile by the Director General, Xavier Barcons you can make a reasonably decent prediction. The Paranal observatory has a nice set of optical - and optical interferometer capable - telescopes, but there are plenty of those everywhere. What it does have however is NGTS which is a system looking for super-earth category planets in other systems. I wouldn't mind putting a wager on to say that they have found a very interesting earth-like planet somewhere nearby with all the usual spectroscopy indicating liquid water etc etc.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday October 13 2017, @04:32AM (2 children)
It could be optical confirmation of a gravitational wave detection of a neutron star collision, see added links.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday October 13 2017, @09:32PM (1 child)
Or it could be that new non-dwarf planet they have been looking for, and the 3-days is the time it takes them to prepare for the onslaught of Planet_niners fighting Planet_teners about names and classifications.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday October 13 2017, @10:19PM
Yeah, but... and this is admittedly reading a lot into very little... a planet shouldn't be considered an "astronomical phenomenon that has never been witnessed before", even if it is a new gas giant in our solar backyard.
Meanwhile, Newsweek says "The discovery, which is being kept secret until press conferences are held on October 16, relates to gravitational waves. It involves scientists from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and the Virgo Collaboration, along with teams from 70 different observatories across the globe."
*tenners
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 13 2017, @11:25AM
Oops, I read that as "introduced from ESO’s Paranormal Observatory in Chile by the Director General, Xavier Barcons"