Scientists stumped by strange X-rays from Uranus Mysterious X-rays have been spotted emanating from Uranus for the first time, according to the latest observations made using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. X-ray emissions from the planet may not seem so surprising at first since Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune have been found to scatter such radiation from the Sun. …
> The article says "the main source of radiation does indeed come from the Sun" which means the Sun actually does shine out of Uranus.
Well, technically it is reflected off Uranus. How much light is reflected is very much related to how much surface area is exposed to the sun.
The issue here, is that there is more light emanating from Uranus than just from reflection, resulting in the scientists conjecturing that there is a actual light emitter in Uranus causing the discrepancy.
The whole observation can easily be explained by extraterrestrial life. Obviously, there are Uranus people getting an X-ray to determine their medical condition and we see the excess radiation. And of course this coincides with higher solar activity because we all know how dangerous solar radiation is for our fragile bodies, which we then have to check and test. Also, the Earth too is noisy in many EM bands. Clearly, Uranians have evolved to eliminate much of the lower frequency bands, but can still see use in the X-ray spectrum. See, mystery solved.
without putting something in local orbit on say the dark side during an ecclipse then there are too many possibilities to bother speculating/
Ecclipse, because obviously if light paths are chaoticly scattered then monitoring levels on far side from sun where solar Xrays are reduced is the easiest way to see if this is actually significant.
As has already been posted there could be local sources such ascaptured meteorites containing fissiles.
Having listened to Jasper Carrott I learned the potential hazards of setting light to a fart without ever having to try it myself!
Ohhh & not forgetting "Armageddon" (The horrors of "Felching" - Lighting farts with a match, causing damage to gerbils, facial hair & digestive tract along with a broken nose from a jet propelled gerbil).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTrOb8zyrZk
Sending a spacecraft to Jupiter and Uranus is much easier than it would be to send a spacecraft to the nearest neutron stars or black holes
Easier, yes. Also, unless you can get a grant with a very long timeline for the final report...
I mean, there might be a neutron star as close as a mere 250 ly away, which is a stroll round the park in interstellar terms, but there's still going to be a bit of a delay before you get information back from your probe. And it looks like the closest known black holes are another order of magnitude in distance from Earth. "Look, when some researcher in some future civilization publishes on this, I want second-author credit."
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
