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On Second Thought, Polaris Really Does Seem 434 Light Years Away
sciencehabit writes with this excerpt from Science Magazine "Last November, astronomer David Turner made headlines by claiming that one of the sky's best known objects—the North Star, Polaris—was actually 111 light-years closer than thought. If true, the finding might have forced researchers to rethink how they calculate distances in the cosmos as well as what they know about some aspects of stellar physics. But a new study argues that distance measurements of the familiar star made some 2 decades ago by the European Space Agency's venerable Hipparcos satellite are still spot on."
...eleventy-one light years is far too short a distance to travel among such excellent and admirable stellar phenomena.
Polaris is a sneaky, underhanded, deceitful star, not to be trusted. Fortunately, in about 15,000 years, it will no longer be the north star. Sir Alop
Oddly enough, the old Russian maxim applies here. One does not travel at warp, warp travels you.
You never know...
Yes, that's why we call it science. If it were never wrong, it would be religion.
Probably an error converting between metric light-years and American light-years.
Does this discrepancy only exist for Polaris? Do all other stars give the same results for both measurement methods?
Short read.
You'd think making Hubble take an accurate bead on the thing on Dec. 31 and Jul. 1, then comparing the two readings to triangulate would be all that's needed (basic geometry); nuh uh. How about Type 1a supernovae which ought to all be the same luminosity, or Cepheid Variables, ditto.
Nope. It's not that easy. Fun problem.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
The Polarans solved FTL travel ages ago, and now use it to troll other civilisations by placing their star along some life-bearing planet's axis of rotation, waiting for people to develop advanced astronomy, then randomly feinting at them to mess with the scientists' heads.
Like the autism/vaccination link, Piltdown man was a deliberate fraud exposed by scientists themselves, to me these and other famous frauds are strong evidence that science works as advertised. For an honest man capable of introspection, the scientific method (eventually) weeds out wishful thinking, propaganda, and fraud, this is it's strength. It's weakness is in the undocumented assumption that all involved are honest men acting in good faith.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Reading up, it turnes out the whole argumentation is exactly the other way round than I would hav eexpected.
You can meassure the distance of stars in multiple ways, most depend on assumptions that can be pretty hard to get right. There is ONE way, though, to accurately determine the distance:
By simple geometry. If you observe the star 6 months apart, you get a trianble with a base of 2AU, which is enough accurately triangulate the distance of stars up to a some 100 ly away.
This was exactly the method used 2 decade ago.
Not this new guy used a very indirect way (measuring the brightness we see the star, guessing its real brightness by looking at spectra and then deciding how far away it must have been), gets a 30% different number and claims his, indirect and error-laden, way is yielding the more correct of the results.
Tard.
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
Dude if you wat Science Fiction, check out the History channel. Every single show is about aliens in one way or another.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.