Astrophysicist Observes Own Ass

Dover, England, April 29, 2010 -- Thurgood Quark, an astrophysicist at the Extremely Powerful Orbital Telescope Control Centre in Dover, England, was reportedly startled yesterday to discover that an irregularly-formed object he was observing, estimated to be at a distance of over eighteen billion light-years away, was in fact his own ass.

Space

Equally oddly, the posterior in question appeared to be moving on a time scale slightly ahead of his own. Leading scientists at a quickly convened convention today are in agreement that this may be the most momentous insight into the shape of the universe to date.

"The implications of this are enormous," said Dr. Quark. "We've long had mathematical theories going back as far as the 1960s that suggested the universe's space-time continuum may be shaped, in layman's terms, much like a big donut. This theory suggests that the universe is not infinite as such, but more like a closed loop that folds back on itself. That image applies to time as well, as space, time and gravity do not operate independently but rather dictate each others' forms."

Dr. Quark made his discovery while exploring what were previously presumed to be the furthest reaches of space with the new Extremely Powerful Orbital Telescope (EPOT) launched last spring by the Pan-European Space Consortium (PESC). The telescope was fully tested and calibrated as of last month, and only became fully operational last week.

The mission of EPOT is to look farther into space, and therefore farther backward into time, than has previously been possible, perhaps as far as a few seconds into the Big Bang, the momentous explosion of matter that created the universe. Built using a group of interlinked, synchronized spaceborne radio-telescopes, EPOT has the ability to see over 100 times more clearly, and at over 1000 times greater distances, than the now obsolete Hubble telescope.

Dr. Quark's observation of his own ass, however, has thrown the PESC mission into turmoil.

"If the universe from our vantage point has already folded over, it may prove to be virtually impossible to see all the way back to the Big Bang," said Dr. Quark. "What we're seeing instead, at least from this angle, is our immediate future. It's given us a sense both of great excitement and great disappointment."

Dr. Quark's observations, which were digitally recorded, clearly showed an observatory window through which could be seen the ass of a prominent astrophysicist. Dr. Quark observed the astrophysicist leap from the viewing screens into a vertical position, scratch his head, then turn around and peer through the window. Dr. Quark was so startled that he leapt to his feet, scratched his head, and turned to look out of his own window as the realization of what he had just seen dawned.

"There was a time displacement of approximately twelve seconds," said Dr. Quark. "What I saw was myself, twelve seconds into the future. The observation is still very hard to digest."

The PESC group has not yet reached a consensus on how to interpret the data, nor in which research direction the new findings may lead.

"It's both a tremendous breakthrough and a possible dead end," said Seymour Witter, co-chair of the PESC board. "We've seen further than ever before, only to find an image of our own planet a few seconds from now. Our hope is that if we direct the telescope at different regions of space, areas where the gravity matrix adopts a different configuration, we will be able to observe areas of the universe that have not yet folded over onto themselves, and will therefore be able to look father backward into time and toward the origins of the universe."

"What we may find, though, is that we will instead be looking further into the future – a possibility which is as stimulating as it is terrifying."

By Ion Zwitter, Avant News Editor