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Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
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Vera Rubin Observatory
'Spurious signals from the kitchen' is harder for an optical telescope than a radio one, but with enough determination and creativity, I believe it's possible.
Title text: 'Spurious signals from the kitchen' is harder for an optical telescope than a radio one, but with enough determination and creativity, I believe it's possible.

Explanation

This shows a bingo card of various items discovered by Vera Rubin. However, the 'discoveries' get more and more ridiculous as the card goes on, gathering into ridicule.

A table of these is shown below:

# Item Reference
1 Black hole tidally disrupting a star
2 Planet nine
3 Remnants of a former Milky Way companion galaxy
4 10,000 new trans-Neptunian objects
5 Object on interstellar trajectory
6 Star being eclipsed by weird object
7 Secret military satellite
8 Kuiper Belt object that's a surprising color
9 Mars-sized TNO
10 Local group supernova
11 Spurious signal from observatory kitchen
12 Glitch in alert system spams all astronomers
13 Space (free)
14 Earth-sized TNO
15 Defunct spacecraft
16 Surprising number of small galaxies
17 Neutron star merger
18 New supernova constraints on dark energy
19 New dwarf planet bigger than Pluto/Eris
20 Lost historical comet
21 5 million asteroids and comets
22 50,000 near-Earth asteroids
23 Object likely to impact Earth
24 Vera Rubin herself (faked death, stole spaceship)
25 Many very small dots

Transcript

[A Bingo card is shown, with 25 squares. They are as follows:]
Black hole tidally disrupting a star.
Planet nine.
Remnants of a former Milky Way companion.
10,000 new trans-Newtonian objects.
[Title:] Vera Rubin Observatory discoveries. Bingo Card.


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