physorg.com— An international team of scientists has discovered seven -- and perhaps eight -- dwarf galaxies orbiting Earth's home galaxy, the Milky Way.
Jan 9, 2007View in Crawl 4
I love how people like you refer to "scientists" like they're a little club of nerds that meet in Steve's mum's basement every Saturday and sit around talking s**t to one another until they come up with some new crackpot theory for you to ridicule. It's not like that. Scientists are highly trained, highly specialized experts who spend the bulk of their time learning the work of other scientists. They spend years on end gathering research and working meticulously towards adding their own tiny contribution to the scientific literature.The scientific literature itself is a gargantuan body of work which has been some two thousand years in the making so far, ever since the Greeks first formalized the scientific method. Over that time there have been millions upon millions of additions, corrections, supplements and even the occasional overhaul in the never-ending effort to get as close to the right answer as possible.So yes, I do believe that scientists can extrapolate the distances to the source of those tiny streams of light, though whether they use triangulation or some more sophisticated method I couldn't tell you. Rather than dismissing the notion out of hand, you might find that you'll learn more if you ask questions about the process.
I advise you to not actually hit the submit comment button when you're short on sleep. You babble incoherently. Easily forgiven (I'll even reply) because hambend's response to you made my morning. Anyway, I also don't know how to do any of the calculation processes involved here. I wouldn't even know where to begin - so we start off in the same boat. The difference is that I (also) realize that the scientific community has far more resources than Steve's basement, and that scientists can be / are vicious bastards - if any real objections could be raised, you'd have glory hounds all over it. You, on the other hand, decided that if you were going to estimate a distance like that, you'd use triangulation, and since you couldn't think of any way to measure that precisely, then it's outside the realm of believability for scientists to have come up with more precise measuring instruments or another process entirely. It's the same lack of imagination fallacy you see in the intelligent design movement - your being unable to figure something out does not actually prevent others from using their collective knowledge to find a solution.As for your other point, of course they talk in present tense, because that's what we are actually seeing now in the sky. Would you tell people to go 45 degrees from Polaris to go North just because you know that it has moved since those beams were emitted? Sure, it's important that people realize that we are looking at time-delayed information. It's important that people have a basic science education, because they learn this and a hundred other things I *wish* everyone understood. Rest assured that while the layman might be confused, the scientists are well aware of the passage of time. I'm pretty sure there are models on top of models that allow them to incorporate new data like this (and of course, those models take time into account) - geologists can handle a time variable, I think the astrophysicists will manage.
Holy crap. This guy gets burned once and then starts a new thread so he can get burned once again. My advice to you:If you're still in HS... then when/if you attend a university you should take an introductory astronomy course. You'll be blown away by the stuff you'll learn.Back on topic... the article says the latest galaxy to be discovered is 1.4 million light years from the Milky Way which in astrometric terms is actually quite close. I wouldn't be surprised if that galaxy weren't quite close to the position that we see it at.
"Are we to believe that scientists can extrapolate the distance of those tiny streams of light arriving here now, somehow by triangulation?"There are other methods for determining stellar distance, like redshift and observations of variable stars. You could look that up on Wikipedia ... or, maybe your many "erudite" but, sadly, sleeping friends would know. As if.
hambendJan 10, 2007
I love how people like you refer to "scientists" like they're a little club of nerds that meet in Steve's mum's basement every Saturday and sit around talking s**t to one another until they come up with some new crackpot theory for you to ridicule. It's not like that. Scientists are highly trained, highly specialized experts who spend the bulk of their time learning the work of other scientists. They spend years on end gathering research and working meticulously towards adding their own tiny contribution to the scientific literature.The scientific literature itself is a gargantuan body of work which has been some two thousand years in the making so far, ever since the Greeks first formalized the scientific method. Over that time there have been millions upon millions of additions, corrections, supplements and even the occasional overhaul in the never-ending effort to get as close to the right answer as possible.So yes, I do believe that scientists can extrapolate the distances to the source of those tiny streams of light, though whether they use triangulation or some more sophisticated method I couldn't tell you. Rather than dismissing the notion out of hand, you might find that you'll learn more if you ask questions about the process.
myloniteJan 10, 2007
I advise you to not actually hit the submit comment button when you're short on sleep. You babble incoherently. Easily forgiven (I'll even reply) because hambend's response to you made my morning. Anyway, I also don't know how to do any of the calculation processes involved here. I wouldn't even know where to begin - so we start off in the same boat. The difference is that I (also) realize that the scientific community has far more resources than Steve's basement, and that scientists can be / are vicious bastards - if any real objections could be raised, you'd have glory hounds all over it. You, on the other hand, decided that if you were going to estimate a distance like that, you'd use triangulation, and since you couldn't think of any way to measure that precisely, then it's outside the realm of believability for scientists to have come up with more precise measuring instruments or another process entirely. It's the same lack of imagination fallacy you see in the intelligent design movement - your being unable to figure something out does not actually prevent others from using their collective knowledge to find a solution.As for your other point, of course they talk in present tense, because that's what we are actually seeing now in the sky. Would you tell people to go 45 degrees from Polaris to go North just because you know that it has moved since those beams were emitted? Sure, it's important that people realize that we are looking at time-delayed information. It's important that people have a basic science education, because they learn this and a hundred other things I *wish* everyone understood. Rest assured that while the layman might be confused, the scientists are well aware of the passage of time. I'm pretty sure there are models on top of models that allow them to incorporate new data like this (and of course, those models take time into account) - geologists can handle a time variable, I think the astrophysicists will manage.
johnydJan 10, 2007
Holy crap. This guy gets burned once and then starts a new thread so he can get burned once again. My advice to you:If you're still in HS... then when/if you attend a university you should take an introductory astronomy course. You'll be blown away by the stuff you'll learn.Back on topic... the article says the latest galaxy to be discovered is 1.4 million light years from the Milky Way which in astrometric terms is actually quite close. I wouldn't be surprised if that galaxy weren't quite close to the position that we see it at.
thepictJan 10, 2007
Enjoy your ban.
twangoJan 10, 2007
"Are we to believe that scientists can extrapolate the distance of those tiny streams of light arriving here now, somehow by triangulation?"There are other methods for determining stellar distance, like redshift and observations of variable stars. You could look that up on Wikipedia ... or, maybe your many "erudite" but, sadly, sleeping friends would know. As if.
randomskratchJan 10, 2007
Is there really a necessity to be constantly reporting things like this?Yes, we know there's stuff out there. We get the point.
crcurranJan 10, 2007
If our galaxy can't take the time to eat all the crumbs we are going to end up with ants and other pests. tsk! tsk!