Can any of you help NASA?

iamhunted

Just wondering if any of you scientific 'skeptics' can help NASA with their little mystery sound problem. Like, we know everything about the universe and the big bang dont we?

Listening to the early universe just got harder. A team led by Alan Kogut of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., today announced the discovery of cosmic radio noise that booms six times louder than expected.

The finding comes from a balloon-borne instrument named ARCADE, which stands for the Absolute Radiometer for Cosmology, Astrophysics, and Diffuse Emission. In July 2006, the instrument launched from NASA's Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility in Palestine, Texas, and flew to an altitude of 120,000 feet, where the atmosphere thins into the vacuum of space.

ARCADE's mission was to search the sky for heat from the first generation of stars. Instead, it found a cosmic puzzle.

"The universe really threw us a curve," Kogut says. "Instead of the faint signal we hoped to find, here was this booming noise six times louder than anyone had predicted." Detailed analysis ruled out an origin from primordial stars or from known radio sources, including gas in the outermost halo of our own galaxy. The source of this cosmic radio background remains a mystery.

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2009/arcade_balloon.html

iamhunted

My god! Someone sack this scientist ... he used the 'unexplained' word in a positive light!

"This is what makes science so exciting," says Michael Seiffert, a team member at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "You start out on a path to measure something -- in this case, the heat from the very first stars -- but run into something else entirely, something unexplained."

Is he becoming a 'believer' in something unexplained? The shame of it.

Kinda shows that paranormal research and science both have the same goals. Imagine if NASA sat on its arse content that we know everything there is to know so theres no point in looking.

Isnt that the 'skeptic' problem with the paranormal? Some people actually go trying to figure it out while the 'skeptics' dont and just sit about giving out about it? I have to use the quotes as seriously, I havent met many genuine skeptics on here. A few but not many.

JC 2K3

I don't know, and I'm comfortable with saying that.

I'm also comfortable with saying that I severely doubt its something that will never be explained satisfactorily in natural terms.

I'm not sure if you understand science correctly. It's an investigative methodology which seeks to explain that which we don't yet understand, i.e. if there were nothing unexplainable in this life, there'd be no need for science....

iamhunted

I honestly mean no offense, but I have to take you to task on the "I'm not sure if you understand science correctly" bit.

i find with alarming regularity that when science is raised, someone will undoubtably come in with the line "I'm not sure if you understand science correctly" - yet they never point out where they think the misunderstanding is, and what they understanding of that same point is.

Its simple to type "I'm not sure if you understand science correctly" - but if you arent sure, then let me know when you are. and if you are sure, then tell me where im going wrong. Otherwise the sentence is pointless.

It's an investigative methodology which seeks to explain that which we don't yet understand, i.e. if there were nothing unexplainable in this life, there'd be no need for science....

Exactly. im glad you got the point I am making. Granted, paranormal research doesnt have a definitive methodology yet, but thats why it isnt science. As I said, they both have the same goals. I didnt say they were both the same.

JC 2K3

Oh, it was your remark about a scientist using the word "unexplained" in a positive light that made me wonder if you realised what science actually was, it seemed to imply to me that you thought science was some kind of authority that never admitted to not knowing or understanding something, which is the exact opposite to what it actually is.

iamhunted

thats exactly my understanding. I find here in this forum that sometimes people think science is strict and exact with no room for movement, when if that was the case science would founder and stop developing.

I am making the comparison with paranormal research in that both are essentially searching for things we currently dont have proof for, except one has developed as failsafe as currently possible methods (science) and the other is still trying to work out if theres anything to search for (paranormal research).

i find thats a point thats massively misunderstood in here which is why I started the thread, to show that science is itself exploring, searching and finding things it wants to explain - much like paranormal research (which is nowhere near as developed).

JC 2K3

I haven't read this forum much, however, much of the paranormal forum is just people claiming random beliefs with no basis. There is surely a distinction between this and research into paranormal claims?

iamhunted

For us there is. Personally i see the whole thing in two groupings (generally):

1) The Scare Factor grouping - where its all about going to a creepy place and scaring yourself with stories about 'orbs'.

2) The Research orientated grouping who visit apparent places of paranormal activity (many of which arent creepy looking) and try and see if they can find out what the story is.

LeinsterParanormal have done quite a few of these kind of investigations and theres only two places I can think of (and they arent public) that have something going on. These are the places we've got some quite clear EVPs from and we cant work out how we didnt hear them at the time.

Everywhere else we've went we've been able to offer at least some kind of rational explaination for most of the things we've been told about (some you just cant verify either way).