I just did my second press conference, at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Seattle. It was the last day, and there weren't many people left at the conference, but that turned out to be good --- my result was the best of the news offerings that day!
I found evidence that the black hole at the center of our Galaxy devoured a small amount of mass (equivalent to the planet Mercury. . . or Pluto, for the stubborn) about 70 years ago. I identified an echo produced as light traveled away from the black hole. The light encountered gas and dust, and was reflected towards us. Because of the length of time it took for the light to reach the clouds before it was reflected, we see the echoes long after the original source of the light had disappeared.
It had long been thought that this phenomena caused gas to fluoresce near the Galactic center. The new aspect of this was that we saw the echo move over the course of three years, as the "ripple" of light moved across the cloud.
The original press release was produced by the Chandra X-ray Center. The work was also covered at geeky repositories of science news like space.com, New Scientist, and by the always-popular (if nothing else) FOX news.
Best of all, though, New Scientist did an interview, and it is available as a Podcast! (Link) I feel like this could be the start of my fifteen minutes of fame! Why, having a Podcast was number 6 on my list of things to do before I make a new list! Of course, number 1 is being on the Daily Show. . . Jon Stewart, are you bored and reading this?
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