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Quadrantids Source Discovered
linuxwrangler writes "Man has observed the annual Quadrantid meteor shower since antiquity but its source has remained unknown. Astronomer Peter Jenniskens of the SETI Institute predicted that the source would turn out to be the burnt-out core of an ancient star. Now, just in time for this year's display, the source has been discovered right where Jenniskens predicted."
First the article says that it was an ancient star that exploded, and at the end it says that it was an ancient comet that exploded.
Meteors are pieces of asteroids or comets that are visible when they intercept the Earth's atmosphere.
It's absolutely preposterous that a star that exploded 500 million years ago could:
Throw a rock into Earth's orbit. Any supernova within a few dozen light years would have destroyed life on Earth at the time. Any supernova would have pulverized a chunk of rock too. And even if a rock somehow came from a distant supernova, we'd never be able to figure it out a half-billion years after the fact.
I attribute the complete absurdity of this article to a science writer who doesn't know anything about science. Or, it could have been an incompetent editor who screwed up the article. Anyway, it completely sucks.
What they did in fact discover is that a particular asteroid is the parent of the meteor stream. This is interesting to know, but hard to dig out of that ill-written article.
This is America, damnit. Speak Spanish!
Look again - the SFGate's science editor is the writer. And is the paper's main editor going to overrule the science editor on a science article? Don't think so. Hopefully this is just a temporary situation, like the editor filling in while the astronomy/physics reporter is on holiday or something.
Dare I ask why /.'s editor didn't catch this?
If we were ants living on a Rubik's cube, differential geometry would be a little more confusing.
The real scoop can be found here, from the San Jose Astronomical Association (or in a shorter version .
In Jennisken's paper 2003 EH1 is the Quadrantid shower parent comet is is stated that the source of the meteor shower is a comet... and cannot be different, because the debris nature of meteors. Ancient star cores are very compact and dense objects, with a higher mass than Jupiter.
Víctor R. Ruiz
rvr(at)blogalia.com
The person who let that piece be printed in that form deserves to be the laughingstock of the science-editor community from now until he leaves the business. There is no excuse for getting high-school-level science facts wrong.
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
This is an error-filled article, and Timothy should not have posted it. Do not bother to read it.
Timothy should post a correction, and be more careful in the future.
The latest Slashdot meme.
a literate person in this day and age who would not know that "aster" and "asterOID" are two very different things.
Right on. Literacy is too narrowly defined now. Certainly to be literate you should be well educated in the literary and liberal arts, but you should also be well educated in the sciences.
It goes both ways. If you can build a computer from raw transistors with your eyes closed, but can't describe what iambic pentameter is, you aren't literate.
Actually, it can be true.
The article just says it orbits between Jupiter and Earth, but doesn't mention its geometry. The orbit could be highly elliptical, with its perihelion being lower than Earth's and apohelion being higher than Earths's. At some point in its orbit, it would be "orbiting" between Earth and Jupiter.. at another point it would be crossing orbital paths with Earth on its way to perihelion.
Yes, it is terrible use of terminology (indicative of the rest of the article), but it could kind of be considered possible.
IANAL, but I play one on
It seems planet Klandathu hasn't perfected its technique yet.
No, it is called Anonymous Coward, because in Soviet Russia, meteor showers name YOU!
Dear God, I just have to say that is the worst article I have ever read. It was so stunningly bad that I wondered if it was a bad joke or a hoax. I glanced at my watch to make sure it wasn't April 1, because I didn't believe anyone could be so sincerely clueless. I simply don't have adjectives for how bad the article is.
I know this post is redundant, but I had to get it off my chest.
Wow, this is a really bad article. I stand in awe to ignorance. (For the record, I realize not everyone knows middle-school astronomy -- although the exceptions are few -- but most of those people's writing on that topic isn't being published in newspapers.)
I emailed him from the address given in the article (not something I'd usually even consider doing but given the extremely poor quality of the article I did) and his reply follows:
/ 12/31/MNGCC4152J1.DTL is the most poorly written science article I've ever read. It's too hard even to understand what you may have been trying to convey to the reader here; just plain bad. Somehow it was posted to Slashdot anyway though. Have fun reading the comments there! http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/12/3 1/1754258&mode=thread&tid=134&tid=160
Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2003 13:13:40 -0800
From: Perlman, David
[ Add to Address Book | Block Address | Report as Spam ]
To:
Subject: RE: Quadrantids Article
That article was written by me carelessly and in haste; we will publish a brief correction tomorrow, but I can only apologize for its total confusion. I've emailed everyone who complained and can only apologize again --it is far below my usual standards.
-----Original Message-----
From: roch1west@excite.com [mailto:roch1west@excite.com]
Sent: Wednesday, December 31, 2003 12:49 PM
To: Perlman, David
Subject: Quadrantids Article
I do believe this: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
This isn't Offtopic. It's Insightful. This moderator deserves to burn his points so that somebody else can get them.
Bootes is known as "The Herdsman", "The Ox Driver", or "The Ploughman". "The Hunter" is reserved for the constellation Orion.
There may be no excuse, but it seems to be normal journalistic practice.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Better articles (no exploding stars) here and here (pdf).
Going against /. traditions, I sometimes read the atricle & then the comments.
Ouch. All I got from the article was a profound sense of "Huh? That makes no sense."
Reading the comments made me feel better (grin)
It is difficult to conceive of a literate person in this day and age who would not know that "aster" and "asterOID" are two very different things.
In Second Grade I got in trouble because my teacher didn't know what "asteroid" meant, and thought because it had "ass" in it, it must be profanity.
She had a college degree.
It's your fault, because you conservative idiots take money from the schools and use it to line your own pockets. Selfish bastard.
This is America, damnit. Speak Spanish!
Besides, I bet you cringed when it was a liberal administration which tried to fire someone for using the word "niggardly", while the poster's experience sounds more like an embar-ass-ment of the right because a leftist isn't going to get bent out of shape for a three-letter-word.
Last, the pathetic state of knowlege of those who obtain teaching certificates is widely known, irrefutable and of no particular help to either side of the political spectrum.
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
This is a mischaracterization of the facts.
The facts are that the schools take the money from "our" pockets first.
If you take (without my permission) $20 from my pocket, and then I take (without your permission) $10 back, then you would call me the selfish thief?
Before you call somebody a selfish bastard or an idiot, why don't you at least make a half-assed attempt to get the logic straight.
You don't understand the service I provide. I provide abuse in the form of impersonations of Ann Coulter (if she were a liberal).
Facts and logic don't play any part in the real Ann Coulter's writings, and they don't play any part in mine either.
This is America, damnit. Speak Spanish!
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
Ah, ... forgive me. You're doing a great job at not using facts and logic in your arguments. Keep up the good work!