The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics has news so big it announced that it would announce something. The press conference will stream live tomorrow at noon, but cosmologists everywhere are gossiping about what that news could be. The leading theory: Scientists have detected gravitational waves, in what would be a landmark discovery for the field of physics.

“If a detection has been made, it is extraordinarily exciting,” Andrew Jaffe, a cosmologist from Imperial College, London, told the Guardian. “This is the real big tick-box that we have been waiting for. It will tell us something incredibly fundamental about what was happening when the universe was only 10-34 seconds old.”
But even if the rumors prove true, it’s crucial to remain skeptical. Extracting the signal is extremely tricky. The CMB’s temperature varies by a few parts in 100,000. In comparison, B-modes account for just one part in 10 million in the CMB temperature distribution.

Read more: http://www.universetoday.com/110353/rum ... z2wD0P6wow

Ironclad wrote:In an attempt to sound like I know something for a change: aren't these the folk controlling Kepler, the programme seeking Earth-like planets?

hackenslash wrote:

Ironclad wrote:In an attempt to sound like I know something for a change: aren't these the folk controlling Kepler, the programme seeking Earth-like planets?

They are, yes. One of the things Carroll mentioned in his blog about what the announcement might concern is finding extraterrestrial life...

hackenslash wrote:I'll try to find one. There's hours yet. It's due about noon Eastern time (US).

Edit: It will be at the following link:

http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/news_conferences.html

About 4PM UTC.