Identified Flying Object Invades Scientists’ Space

A meeting of scientists discussing the cosmic--the possibility of life on other planets--was eclipsed Thursday by the commonplace.

A bird landed on a power transformer outside the San Juan Institute, blacking out a scientific summit about Jupiter’s moon Europa.

“We were in the middle of a coffee break and heard this loud bang, then the lights went out,” said Doug Nash, a planetary geoscientist and founder of the San Juan Institute, a nonprofit foundation that specializes in studies of the solar system.

The 75 scientific minds at the seminar came up with an immediate solution, though. They simply carried some chairs outside and continued their deliberations in sight of the historic Mission San Juan Capistrano, ignoring nearby street and air traffic.

“I just told everyone to grab a chair. Hey, the show must go on,” Nash said.

The electricity was restored 90 minutes later.

“We weren’t going to let a little power outage stop us,” said Eugene Shoemaker, one of the discoverers of the Shoemaker-Levy comet that collided with Jupiter in 1994.

About 120 scientists from such prestigious universities as Cornell and Brown, as well as researchers from other nations, attended the three-day conference, which ended Thursday.

The gathering of specialists in astronomy, oceanography and other disciplines had gathered to consider the possibility that Europa might have frozen oceans that could sustain life.

One of the ideas emerging from the conference was a proposal by Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientist Henry Harris that a small spacecraft lob a 20-pound ball onto Europa’s surface, breaking off a spray of icy particles that could be scooped up for analysis.

As for the flying object that temporarily halted the deliberations--the bird that hit the transformer--it was killed in the incident, a utility worker said.