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Astronomers Have Come Up With a Better Way To Weigh Millions of Solitary Stars (vanderbilt.edu)
Science_afficionado writes: By measuring the flicker pattern of light from distant stars, astronomers have developed a new and improved method for measuring the masses of millions of solitary stars, especially those hosting exoplanets. Stevenson Professor of Physics and Astronomy Keivan Stassun says, "First, we use the total light from the star and its parallax to infer its diameter. Next, we analyze the way in which the light from the star flickers, which provides us with a measure of its surface gravity. Then we combine the two to get the star's total mass." Stassun and his colleagues describe the method and demonstrate its accuracy using 675 stars of known mass in an article titled "Empirical, accurate masses and radii of single stars with TESS and GAIA" accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journal.
David Salisbury via Vanderbilt University explains the other methods of determining the mass of distant stars, and why they aren't always the most accurate: "Traditionally, the most accurate method for determining the mass of distant stars is to measure the orbits of double star systems, called binaries. Newton's laws of motion allow astronomers to calculate the masses of both stars by measuring their orbits with considerable accuracy. However, fewer than half of the star systems in the galaxy are binaries, and binaries make up only about one-fifth of red dwarf stars that have become prized hunting grounds for exoplanets, so astronomers have come up with a variety of other methods for estimating the masses of solitary stars. The photometric method that classifies stars by color and brightness is the most general, but it isn't very accurate. Asteroseismology, which measures light fluctuations caused by sound pulses that travel through a star's interior, is highly accurate but only works on several thousand of the closest, brightest stars." Stassun says his method "can measure the mass of a large number of stars with an accuracy of 10 to 25 percent," which is "far more accurate than is possible with other available methods, and importantly it can be applied to solitary stars so we aren't limited to binaries."
David Salisbury via Vanderbilt University explains the other methods of determining the mass of distant stars, and why they aren't always the most accurate: "Traditionally, the most accurate method for determining the mass of distant stars is to measure the orbits of double star systems, called binaries. Newton's laws of motion allow astronomers to calculate the masses of both stars by measuring their orbits with considerable accuracy. However, fewer than half of the star systems in the galaxy are binaries, and binaries make up only about one-fifth of red dwarf stars that have become prized hunting grounds for exoplanets, so astronomers have come up with a variety of other methods for estimating the masses of solitary stars. The photometric method that classifies stars by color and brightness is the most general, but it isn't very accurate. Asteroseismology, which measures light fluctuations caused by sound pulses that travel through a star's interior, is highly accurate but only works on several thousand of the closest, brightest stars." Stassun says his method "can measure the mass of a large number of stars with an accuracy of 10 to 25 percent," which is "far more accurate than is possible with other available methods, and importantly it can be applied to solitary stars so we aren't limited to binaries."
sick my DAMN balls lol
Without a set of truth observations to evaluate the technique, there actually isn't a way to know that one method produces better results than another. This is basically guessing that one approach is better than the other, because there's no way to directly measure the mass of those stars. Verification is practically impossible.
And a mighty bit of hand waving !!! Tally Ho! Thar be Trump in them waters!
One says to the other "Does this dark matter make me look fat?"
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DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
The weight of any star is 0 (in any units! :)
I'm glad the main article corrects this to "measuring the mass", though. But the headline should be updated to remove the word 'weigh'.
They might be able to calculate your mom's mass.
What does this help us do? Detect anomalies?
Ergo est....
1. Mass converts to electromagnetic energy and back. There is no explanations of this magic, ergo mass and energy are the *same* stuff, no change happens to the stuff both, are the same stuff.
2. Mass and gravity strangely scale together, why? It's too convenient, ergo, mass is defined by its gravity, it is not a measure of *stuff* it is a measure of the stuff's potential to create an attractive force we call gravity.
2a. Simply because we define mass from gravity/momentum/inertia not from a count of N particles. There could be stuff that creates little gravity or stuff that creates more gravity that we view as having a higher mass, i.e. there could be an N+1 particle group that has less mass than an N group by virtue of its configuration.
3. If mass is defined by such an attraction force, then the force needs to change with velocity to account for momentum and inertia.
3a. As the force approaches zero, so the velocity will approach a limit, this is where c the speed of light limit comes from. Its the velocity at the theoretical zero attractive force.
4. If you crash two particles together to a photon, the photon must be made of the stuff of the two particles (no change, the same stuff, see 1), and since its velocity changes so must the value of its attraction force (i.e. 3 must still hold true)
5. The only real difference between all particles is charge, all other variations derive from charge, e.g. you can say there are anti-particles and particles and so on, but the difference is their charge. Ergo only 2 fundamental particles are likely, that differ only by charge.
6. If I send a photon through 2 slits or 2000 slits, and interfere any of the two slits, I still get the same interference pattern for one photon as a continuous stream of light, ergo photons are divisible (not fundamental) and the fundamental thing that makes them up is less than 2000th of the photon because the photon is divisible by that much.
7. The photon doesn't change its nature, while in the experiment and change back later, it has no mechanism to know when its in an experiment, ergo, it does not change.
You know where I'm going with this.... the force is clearly organisation electro-statics. The attractive force you get with clouds of spinning dipoles as they kick each other to stick together. When you model how it behaves, it is attraction only, it forms twisting hoop particles naturally, it forms clouds of coherent spinning/twisting particles (i.e. photons), it varies with velocity (as long as the dipoles are spinning the velocity affects the spin axis subtended onto the other particle), it it stronger in organized particles, and weaker in clouds. It fits the flock of starling model (i.e. my primary way of explaining why QM is broken, a macro scale detector trying to detect a micro scale item) because it very micro in relation to particles as they stand now.
And it follows from the model, there's no speed of light limit, its the limit caused by the attraction force between two clumps of stuff, but if you took a clump of stuff far enough away, nearer a bigger clump of stuff, the net velocity between it and our stuff can be greater than c. This is why stars fly off faster than c, they're simply nearer stuff we can't see than our stuff.
At distances smaller than the spin distance, organization electrostatics collapses (it can no longer spin and kick surrounding spinning particles to form the attraction force), and you're left with just electrostatics. For a net 0 force. Which in turn means black holes lose cohesion at that density. i.e.a universer is a black hole mopping up mass in an area till its too dense, the force collapses, then bang, it loses cohesion and stuff flies off to join other universes.
Which means more than one universe, because stuff needs to already be there, (there's no reason why there would only be one big bang and one universe hence there are many).
So stuff (I'm not calling it matter because it is also photons and stuff below the detection level of p
Does it work on Uranus?
Did they really retire the International Space Scale, or ISS?
We already know each star weighs on average of about about 1 SJW landwhale, or in US standard terms 2.3 Americans.
I was just yesterday teaching my daughter that the twinkling we see is either a physiological effect, or is added the atmospheric interference.
But the summary says the researchers are using the flickering and inferring gravitational magnitude from it. So the stars really do twinkle! I learned something inspiring today.
Could measure mass from temperature. The higher the temperature the higher the mass.
This was covered in 2013. Gravitational lensing, which needs dark matter theory to be correct. The problem is, dark matter is just a theory to make up for what the math can't explain, which has never been proven. And then, supersymmetry is used to explain the "existence" of dark matter, which CERN has yet to find any evidence. I wish I could sign in for this, but I know that the "dazzle" vs. "baffle with bullshit" ratio is going to be too skewed to be worth it.
Without a set of truth observations to evaluate the technique, there actually isn't a way to know that one method produces better results than another.
Not true at all. First off the methods used are actually based on evidence and methods we actually understand quite well. Second, when you have multiple methods you can compare them and when multiple methods give similar answers you gain confidence in the results. There are some logical inferences at times but always based on observations. Astrophysicists aren't idiots making stuff up out of thin air.
Verification is practically impossible.
You seem to be under the misapprehension that you need to be able to put something on a scale to know it's actual weight. Fortunately physics provides quite a lot more tools than that and some people much smarter than you or I understand how to use them.
Today, they can measure EXTREMELY ACCURATELY the mass of stars in binary systems. You can use this method on those same stars and get an idea of how accurate this method is. So, you validate this method using stars that you already know the mass for using the binary system method. Then, once you've validated the method, you can use it reliably on stars not in a binary system.
This is a very impressive advance in astronomy since now we can "weight" all main sequence stars, not just the ones in binary systems (although this is fair proportion of them).
And gravity wave astronomy is becoming routine now - in a few years the detectors will be making daily stellar merger events, and likely events that are a complete surprise to us.
The Twenty First Century is going to be an amazing period for understanding the Universe!
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
With a few careful observations, you can begin to understand that the
heliocentric model is a lie, and you live on a flat plane.
Science says the tilt of the Earth gives less sunlight to the North this time of year. But have you noticed that the sun also appears weaker, and yellower? The tilt only moves it towards the south, and gives it a shorter, lower track through the sky. But the amount of atmosphere traversed is the same for any light coming up from the horizon -- East or South. So what makes the light itself appear weaker in Winter? There should be the same amount of atmosphere to cross whether the Sun rises due East in the summer, or South-East in the winter.
So why is the winter Sun weak and yellower than the summer sun at the same altitude in the sky?
Space is fake. The Earth is flat. The eclipses prove it.
Solar Eclipse: https://vimeo.com/230976895
Light of the chromosphere can be observed on the back of the moon. Allais Effect
Lunar Eclipse: https://vimeo.com/92378881
Shadow is black, then changes color to reddish.
Next lunar eclipse: January 30/31, 2018 North America
Stars are just lights. Space is fake. The Earth is flat.
Try explaining to your daughter why the winter Sun is weaker and yellower. It can't be explained by the tilt, or else the summer Sun would look like the winter Sun whenever it is low in the sky. We have sunrise and sunset every day, so there is nothing special about the tilt in that regard. It's the same atmosphere from the east as the south east.
nt
...and not only real but it's Magic and there's zero proof of its existence other than the fact that we didn't and likely still don't know how to measure stars' masses, missed a bunch of low density dust, and clearly do not know how gravity or black holes or universe expansion really works. But it's totally real and you should give scientists grant money to "study" it, and I use that term veeeeery generously considering it has never been detected. I cannot stand how scientists are always like "the total mass of the universe doesn't add up but rest assured, we know we're measuring it accurately and by the way we don't know how many planets are in our solar system."
These are the same guys who can't get moon dust under their moon rockets.
Can't explain the winter Sun.
Can't explain the chromosphere light on the back of the moon during solar eclipse.
Can't explain the shadow on the moon spontaneously changing color during the lunar eclipse.
Can't explain why gyroscopes don't move to show the rotation of Earth.
But dark matter is totally real! And gravity! And Einstein's theories!
The better response is "Reality is fake".