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Inaccuracy in reporting astronomy and science
tanjent
post Sep 12 2012, 03:39 AM
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I don't exactly see the inaccuracy; statements of fact can be inaccurate but impressions are just impressions.
What we have here is just a struggling writer who vaguely grasps that controversy attracts attention, posting on a website trying hard to keep people's attention until it can figure out a business plan.
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dvandorn
post Sep 22 2012, 01:03 PM
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Just turned on an episode of "Mysteries at the Museum" on the Travel Channel. They visited a museum in New Mexico that has a well-designed, full-sized MER model, which encouraged them to tell the tale of Spirit, The Mars Rover!

Gee -- did you know that just as soon as the Sol 18 anomaly was resolved Spirit had to immediately run for the southernmost place it could get to so it could survive the winter that was closing in fast (and that promised a full 90 days of darkness)? And that, during this frantic flight for survival, her wheel then failed and then they discovered silica in the failed wheel trench and so stopped worrying about the winter?

Not exactly how I remember the timeline back in 2004...

-the other Doug


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MahFL
post Dec 19 2012, 03:28 PM
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The Weather Channel just said the weather on Mars is unpredictable, which as we all know is not really true. rolleyes.gif
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tedstryk
post Dec 22 2012, 11:10 PM
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QUOTE (MahFL @ Dec 19 2012, 04:28 PM) *
The Weather Channel just said the weather on Mars is unpredictable, which as we all know is not really true. rolleyes.gif


Well, yes and no...for example, when conditions are right, sometimes there's a global dust storm, sometimes there isn't. Whether anywhere is somewhat unpredictable.


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AndyG
post Feb 17 2013, 04:27 PM
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An almost pointless story:

Guardian Website:
QUOTE
Russian meteorite 'could have hit UK'

The meteorite that caused devastation in the Urals on Friday could have struck Britain if it had entered the atmosphere at only a slightly different time of day, astronomers revealed yesterday.

The region around Chelyabinsk hit by the meteorite impact is 55 degrees north, the same latitude as northern England. Had the meteorite's timing been only few hours different, it could have caused widespread damage in the British Isles, astronomers at the University of Hawaii said yesterday.


Now - while I'm glad the Guardian is raising the risk of impacts - had the meteorite's timing been "only a few hours" different, the Earth wouldn't have been in the way at all. And the latitude in this context is quite meaningless.

Andy
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rlorenz
post Feb 17 2013, 06:24 PM
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QUOTE (AndyG @ Feb 17 2013, 11:27 AM) *
An almost pointless story:
Now - while I'm glad the Guardian is raising the risk of impacts - had the meteorite's timing been "only a few hours" different, the Earth wouldn't have been in the way at all. And the latitude in this context is quite meaningless.


Perhaps the Copernican revolution didnt make it to the Gaurniad editorial offices.... in that context, the statement seems plausible.
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JRehling
post Feb 20 2013, 06:45 PM
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Per the Guardian story, in Cosmos, Carl Sagan makes a very similar point about how if the Earth had rotated a bit more the Tunguska event might have leveled Moscow and if it had happened during the Cold War, that might have started a nuclear war.

Counterfactuals are always subject to scrutiny regarding their relevance ("if π were 2.5...", "if the Queen were a man...") but if Carl Sagan saw a point worth making, I can't blame The Guardian for making a similar one.
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centsworth_II
post Feb 20 2013, 07:07 PM
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"...if it had entered the atmosphere at only a slightly different time of day..."j

The way to look at it is 'if there had been some difference in the timing of the event, due to a miniscule difference in the motion of the meteor or the Earth, the result would have been different.'
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AndyG
post May 5 2013, 06:06 PM
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I'm zipping through the (otherwise highly readable) "The Little Ice Age - How Climate Made History" by Brian Fagan. It's the first edition from 2000. Hopefully the following line has been amended since then:

QUOTE
A helioseismograph based on an obiting observatory named SOHO 1.6 million kilometers in space sends sound waves towards the sun, which bounce back from the layers that form its interior.


blink.gif

Sloppy writing like this always precipitates thoughts along the lines of "what else is hugely wrong in this book?" mad.gif

Andy
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Phil Stooke
post May 5 2013, 11:24 PM
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Oh, I thought it just used sonar to measure its distance from the Sun.

Phil



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mcaplinger
post May 6 2013, 02:31 AM
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It's easy to take shots at this admittedly sloppy writing, but I'm not sure that even sites like http://solar-center.stanford.edu/singing/singing.html do all that good a job of explaining how SOHO actually measures "sounds" from the Sun. Calling any periodic behavior a "sound" seems like be a source of some confusion.


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Astro0
post May 6 2013, 06:42 AM
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At work, we tell people that we communicate with spacecraft via radio waves.
They ask if they can hear the radio signals we receive as if they were a sound*.
Most seem to simply equate radio with the one they have at home or in the car - the box that makes sound - as opposed to the electromagnetic medium being used to carry the data.

*Of course we can convert it to a sound but that partly defeats the purpose of the science we want to pass on.
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stevesliva
post May 6 2013, 02:02 PM
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QUOTE (Astro0 @ May 6 2013, 01:42 AM) *
They ask if they can hear the radio signals we receive as if they were a sound*.
...
*Of course we can convert it to a sound but that partly defeats the purpose of the science we want to pass on.


But... but...
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fredk
post May 11 2013, 03:32 PM
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QUOTE (Astro0 @ May 6 2013, 06:42 AM) *
Most seem to simply equate radio with the one they have at home or in the car - the box that makes sound - as opposed to the electromagnetic medium being used to carry the data.

That really surprizes me. I thought these days everyone was listening to internet streaming radio stations rather than AM/FM, and thought of radio as a way to transmit data to their devices via wifi or cellphone connections. Maybe they don't realize that cellphones and wifi use radio waves?
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centsworth_II
post Jul 12 2013, 04:03 PM
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British space penetrator passes icy test
"The steel penetrator was fired at a 10-tonne cube of ice to simulate the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa."

This doesn't seem like a very good test. If the surface of Europa is as hard as granite due to the extreme cold, maybe the real test would be to shoot the penetrator into a block of granite! Or maybe not. I'm sure there are other variables to consider, like brittleness. But in any case, it doesn't' t seem to me that this was a very realistic test.
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