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Orion Nebula Gets New Milepost Marker, Now Closer
twilight30 writes "Discovery News is reporting that 'One of the most famous and scrutinized heavenly objects is 10 to 20 percent closer than we thought, say two teams of radio astronomers who have made some of the most precise cosmic distance measurements ever, with a telescope nearly as big as Earth. The Orion Nebula is the closest major stellar nursery to Earth, so it has been heavily studied to learn about the lives of stars. Its distance from Earth, however, has long been a matter of uncertainty, with an estimate made about 25 years ago in need of revision.'"
That's nothing. They needed a computer nearly the size of Jupiter to process the data.
I wonder what they mounted it on! And yes, I did not RTFA - this is /., you insensitive clod
See that long UID - that's what you get for lurking too long
In the 6 months between measurements, the nebula didn't stay still (more precisely, our solar system is known to be rotating counter planar approximately 3 degrees). I assume they've accounted for the red/blue doppler shift, but if the Orion Nebula is undergoing rapid beta expansion, the measurements would be invalid. I don't know of any way to correct for this phenomenon...
Aren't they measuring the distance to stars within a three-dimensional object? I would guess that they could pick two stars that appear close together along our line of sight and come up with wildly different distances. Now perhaps if they measured the distance to one of the Trapezium stars (a very bright formation thought to lie at the "heart" of the nebula) they could come up with some meaningful measurement of distance. Just thought of something else. Let's find a really large repository for data and create a three-dimensional map of the nebula. Don't try to shove this single star data down my throat!
Well, frankly, I just made a bunch of stuff up.
Unlike String Theory, a rigorously testable... oh wait.
What is is all that is. Isn't that obvious?
how the summary should have gone: /summary /end summary
:P
the orion nebula is ___ light years away
end of story
Let's just wait a little longer and we won't have to reprint all those textbooks.
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"Impacted" Plot: In the year 2050 the Earth almost crashes into the Orion Nebula, only to be rescued from destruction by two nerdy radio astronomers from Parkes Observatory in the middle of nowhere in Australia, who, whilst trying to find a cure for constipation from eating too much McDongles(TM) Impact McBurglettes, find that by injecting massive amounts of First Fleet Enema into the Nebula they can cut a path through the Nebula. The romantic part of the movie is where the local district nurse shows up and a tense love triangle is set up between herself and the astronomers.. etc..etc
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Objects in this telescope appear closer than they are.
Measured incorrectly, or has the Orion Nebula just been sneaking closing over the last 25 years?
Nothing is so smiple that it can't be screwed up.
Warning: Objects in telescope are closer than they appear.
--Rob
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>One of the most famous and scrutinized heavenly objects is 10 to 20 percent closer than we thought
In other words, Natalie Portman moved from Boston to New York.
...or the metric system? Hmmmm....
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this basically measuring stellar parallax, but instead of using visible light and optical telescopes against a background of stars, they are using radio waves and radio telescopes against a background of quasars?
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It *was* nearly the size of Earth after all!
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And in 20 years ... another team of "scientists" will claim that prior updates to the distance were incorrect due to mis calibration of the tools used. The nursery is really 10-20% further away. They should have know their tools were off, when they couldn't reduce the error to below 1%.
Anyone needing 10% error is simply guessing.
IT'S OUT TO GET US!!!!
Everyone run away and hide!! The nebula will be here in a few trillion years!!! We're all going to die!!! (by then)!
Run for your lives!!!!
The results are always amusing when pseudo-scientists get mod points.
More like 2 decades in practice, and of course the necessary techniques were mostly hashed out on paper decades earlier.
There was a show on PBS in 1991 called "The Astronomers" (see here). It's a bit dated now (as we should hope!), but one episode documents a team of astronomers coordinating VLBI around 1989-90 using stacks of videocassettes and the postal service. IIRC it was an early use of VLBI, but not necessarily the first. It worked just fine even though it was a bit slower than we now communicate.
Isn't the galaxy *lens*-shaped ... ;) ... unless you count stars as being "like atoms" in that they are *relatively* small "solid" object with large spaces in between them, suspended in a "space". Then therefore we *do* have a medium change and a ratio of refractive indices: light passes from an area of space populated by N stars / lightyear^3 to an area of space with M stars / lightyear^3 where N << M, and the N populated area is lens shaped, therefore visual distortion! :) ...and that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana shaped.
Humour Disclaimer - yes, no medium change, therefore a refractive index ratio of 1
[cough]ull$hit!
ANonCow
---
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King Arthur: This new learning amazes me, Sir Bedevere. Explain again how sheep's bladders may be employed to prevent earthquakes.
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Sheesh.. Doesn't anyone here understand the Messier catalogue?? If 42 has ever had a more apropos moment in recent /. convo, I'll eat my M104 with salsa...
I, for one, am looking forward to the inevitable
It's coming right at us!
Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue...
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The Galactica is closer to Earth than we thought!
The old measurement was 1,565 +/- 266 LY.
Bower's new measurement is 1,270 +/- 76 LY.
Assuming both error bars are correct, then by combining the two measurements we get between 1,299 LY and 1,346 LY.
Reid's new measurement is 1,350 +/- 23 LY.
So combining again, we can conclude the Orion Nebula is between 1,327 and 1,346 LY away, or 1,336.5 LY +/- 9.5 LY.
At best it should be only funny.
;)...) with photon going at exactly c in vacuum. And we would remark the relativistic effect, at those speed with such an enormous mass... (is that even possible?)
Orion nebula distance : 1500 light years. 10% of this : 150 light years. IF you suppose that it is getting closer by that distance, then it means roughly 5+ light years for every years for 25 years. Nothing goes at a speed of 5+ light years per year. At best all physical stuff can only goes at near c (1 light year per year
So no, we are pretty sure the orion nebula has not been sneaking closer (sic) behind our back for such distance difference.
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visit randi.org
This won't save your ass when the distance is only 1mm :)
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...two teams of radio astronomers who have made some of the most precise cosmic distance measurements ever, with a telescope nearly as big as Earth. I thought the death star was as big as the moon.