RSS Feed
iTunes LinkEpisode 148 - BONUS: X-Rays from Pluto
Recap: When a NASA press released announced that scientists had observed x-rays coming from Pluto, my knee-jerk reaction was that certain people would use this to claim that Pluto was built by aliens. A later thought was that some might use it to bolster their ideas of the electric universe. Conveniently, I was going to be seeing one of the main study authors, Dr. Casey Lisse, just a day later at a conference, so I interviewed him about the find to really figure out what was going on, what was expected, what was unexpected, and if aliens built everything.
Additional Materials:
- News Stories
- NASA Press Release: "X-ray Detection Sheds New Light on Pluto"
- Forbes Article: "Pluto Has a Comet-Like Tail, X-Rays, NASA Discovers" (Recommended article by Dr. Lisse)
- Relevant Posts on my "Exposing PseudoAstronomy" Blog
Episode Summary
As this was an interview, there is no transcript. Here is an approximate outline based on questions that were asked:
1) What did you find? --Is Pluto actually "emitting" x-rays? (Rick: What is something that people might be able to relate this to, like, is it similar to a medical x-ray? Does it modulate like a radio signal or is it steady or random?)
2) Why were you looking? (Robert: Why did you expect or think they might be there in the first place? Have you seen other planetary bodies emitting x-rays?)
3) What was the instrumentation?
4) What's the current explanation?
5) What're the remaining questions?
Provide Your Comments: