ASTR1002 Mystery Object Tute: New Data

1. ASTR1002Mystery Object Tute: New Data

2. Patterns in the Night Sky • Some new data has just become available about this mysterious night-sky object.

3. Clues • The people of Mog are remarkably unobservant. None have ever noticed these particular constellations before. However, you did meet a fisherman who reported seeing a cross of bright stars six months ago. However, he saw the cross at dawn, just above the Eastern horizon. There was no fifth bright star within the cross. • All these stars look just like dots to the naked eye - there are no obvious colour differences between them. Some might argue that the middle star in the cross doesn’t twinkle quite as much as the others, but that’s pretty marginal.

4. Telescope Observations • It turns out that another group of scientists have recently been observing this part of the sky with their new invention, a collection of lenses they call a “far seer”, or • “Tele - Scopos”. They looked at this cross constellation six, four and two weeks ago. • Most of the stars in this constellation look much the same when viewed through the “telescope” (they still look like dots of light, only brighter). The middle star of the cross, however, the one that moves with respect to the others, looks quite different.

5. Shapes of the Mystery Object. • Here is what it looked like six, four and two weeks ago. Four weeks ago Six weeks ago Two weeks ago

6. Enough Clues • That should be quite enough clues to allow you to work out what this thing is. In fact, you don’t really need the telescope data - there’s enough information in your naked eye views of the sky. • One last clue - there is an object that behaves just like this mystery object in our own solar system.