
Students digging into data archive spot mysterious X-ray source - sohkamyung
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Students_digging_into_data_archive_spot_mysterious_X-ray_source
======
baxtr
_“This event is challenging our understanding of X-ray outbursts: too short to
be an ordinary stellar flare, but too faint to be linked to a compact object,”
explains collaborator Sandro Mereghetti, lead author of the paper presenting
the results.

Another possibility is that the source is a so-called chromospherically active
binary, a dual system of stars with intense X-ray activity caused by processes
in their chromosphere, an intermediate layer in a star’s atmosphere. But even
in this case, it does not closely match the properties of any known object of
this class._

Interesting. I guess an alien source was ruled out due to magnitude of the
source. Still, would be interesting to see if there is potentially an
underlying communication pattern there.

~~~
maxander
I’d imagine they ruled out an alien source simply because _any_ astronomical
phenomenon could be produced by aliens. Thinking about that for anything
slightly unusual is just burdensome cognitive overhead.

Similar to how cosmologists aren’t satisfied with “god did it” as an
explanation. :)

------
panic
Is there a reason they don't print the high school students' names? It seems
like they should be given some sort of credit for their work.

~~~
zonovar
You can find their names at the end of the article. Hope this guys will keep
working in the field in the future.

~~~
panic
Ah, you're right -- the "continue" button shows them. Never mind!

~~~
mygo
But on a journalistic note, isn’t it proper form for names to be above the
fold? Maybe scientific journalism is different?

~~~
targafarian
It doesn't appear that the high school students are authors on the paper.
Academic papers place authors at the top of the paper (some exceptions for
e.g. huge collaborations with hundreds of authors) and acknowledgments at the
end of the paper. It appears the article follows this pattern, so I don't find
it at all "offensive" coming from an academic background; simply different
conventions of where names appear, but they are listed.

