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Space Science

Quadrantids Source Discovered 55

Posted by timothy from the special-effects-department dept.
linuxwrangler writes "Man has observed the annual Quadrantid meteor shower since antiquity but its source has remained unknown. Astronomer Peter Jenniskens of the SETI Institute predicted that the source would turn out to be the burnt-out core of an ancient star. Now, just in time for this year's display, the source has been discovered right where Jenniskens predicted."
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Quadrantids Source Discovered More

Quadrantids Source Discovered

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  • Article is really bad (Score:5, Informative)

    by Uma Thurman ( 623807 ) on Wednesday December 31, 2003 @03:03PM (#7847255) Homepage Journal
    First the article says that it was an ancient star that exploded, and at the end it says that it was an ancient comet that exploded.

    Meteors are pieces of asteroids or comets that are visible when they intercept the Earth's atmosphere.

    It's absolutely preposterous that a star that exploded 500 million years ago could:

    Throw a rock into Earth's orbit. Any supernova within a few dozen light years would have destroyed life on Earth at the time. Any supernova would have pulverized a chunk of rock too. And even if a rock somehow came from a distant supernova, we'd never be able to figure it out a half-billion years after the fact.

    I attribute the complete absurdity of this article to a science writer who doesn't know anything about science. Or, it could have been an incompetent editor who screwed up the article. Anyway, it completely sucks.

    What they did in fact discover is that a particular asteroid is the parent of the meteor stream. This is interesting to know, but hard to dig out of that ill-written article.

    • Editing (Score:2, Informative)

      by astroboscope ( 543876 )

      I attribute the complete absurdity of this article to a science writer who doesn't know anything about science. Or, it could have been an incompetent editor who screwed up the article.

      Look again - the SFGate's science editor is the writer. And is the paper's main editor going to overrule the science editor on a science article? Don't think so. Hopefully this is just a temporary situation, like the editor filling in while the astronomy/physics reporter is on holiday or something.

      Dare I ask why /.'s ed

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Re:Editing (Score:1, Funny)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Yes, he was once a shining star among journalists and a brilliant editor. Sadly, his fiery temper got the best of him when it exploded 500 hours ago. Now he is merely a shadow of his former self. His girlfriend left him on the grounds that he is too dull and puny to justify cometment. He was photographed Christmas Eve in a dark pub sitting in stony silence and smelling faintly of organic chemicals such as C2H6O, contemplating flashing everyone and streaking down the street.

      • More to the point, why didn't the /. editors catch this?


    • First the article says that it was an ancient star that exploded, and at the end it says that it was an ancient comet that exploded.

      Could it be that the star's core _was_ the comet seen by the Chinese, and as it outgassed, provided the dust we see now as the meteor shower?

      • No. When a star explodes, its core is made up of heavy metals (e.g., iron). The remnant is usually a dwarf star or neutron star (or collapsar, i.e., black hole); it would not be a comet. I think the problem is that someone was talking to him about the idea of an exploding comet, and mentioned something like "back then it would have been a first magnitude star, but now it's merely a 23rd magnitude star" and the fellow took it too literally.
    • Perhaps the reason the idiot phrase "star that exploded" was included was because the word "asteroid" derives from the greek for "starlike" [bartleby.com] and the editor knows more about languages than astronomy. A shame.
      • It is difficult to conceive of a literate person in this day and age who would not know that "aster" and "asterOID" are two very different things. It's difficult to think of anyone in media who wouldn't have some idea about this either, after the films "Armageddon" and "Sudden Impact" just a few short years ago.

        The person who let that piece be printed in that form deserves to be the laughingstock of the science-editor community from now until he leaves the business. There is no excuse for getting high-scho

        • There may be no excuse, but it seems to be normal journalistic practice.
        • It is difficult to conceive of a literate person in this day and age who would not know that "aster" and "asterOID" are two very different things.

          In Second Grade I got in trouble because my teacher didn't know what "asteroid" meant, and thought because it had "ass" in it, it must be profanity.

          She had a college degree.
    • Apparently, locating the proper source is difficult at times. Just ask SCO.
    • It also says the asteroid orbits between earth and jupiter, which can't be true if it produces a shower. The orbit must cross Earth's orbit, so the meteors can hit Earth, unless the orbit has changed considerably, which i doubt.
      • It could be possible, because the dust doesn't need to follow the same orbit as the comet itself. There are very tiny forces that can act over time to alter the path of a dust trail. Also, it is very common, and more likely in this case,for a comet to have its orbit altered by the gravity of Jupiter over time.

      • orbit geometry (Score:3, Informative)

        by boarder ( 41071 )
        Actually, it can be true.

        The article just says it orbits between Jupiter and Earth, but doesn't mention its geometry. The orbit could be highly elliptical, with its perihelion being lower than Earth's and apohelion being higher than Earths's. At some point in its orbit, it would be "orbiting" between Earth and Jupiter.. at another point it would be crossing orbital paths with Earth on its way to perihelion.

        Yes, it is terrible use of terminology (indicative of the rest of the article), but it could kind
    • I second this. Why is the above post only at +2? This is one of the most poorly written science articles I've ever read. The journalist who wrote it seems to have absolutely no understanding even of basic science concepts in astronomy but that apparently didn't stop him from writing a total nonsense article on the subject! What an idiot.

  • Where do I find that? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Radical Rad ( 138892 ) on Wednesday December 31, 2003 @03:49PM (#7847693) Homepage
    it appears to come from somewhere in the direction of the constellation once known as Quadrans Murales, but now officially named Bootes, the Hunter.

    ...and located just below the left paw of the constellation known as Toonces, the Driving Cat.

    • From the article: ...the Quadrantid meteor shower, because it appears to come from somewhere in the direction of the constellation once known as Quadrans Murales, but now officially named Bootes, the Hunter.

      Rad: ...and located just below the left paw of the constellation known as Toonces, the Driving Cat.

      I once had a cat named Bootes. She never had kittens, but came into season about every three weeks. Obviously, she was a favorite of the local tomcats.

      Back to astronomy, though: shouldn't the Quadran

  • "Star" should be "comet" (Score:4, Informative)

    by Bryant ( 25344 ) on Wednesday December 31, 2003 @03:51PM (#7847713) Homepage
    The real scoop can be found here [sjaa.net], from the San Jose Astronomical Association (or in a shorter version . [sjaa.net]

  • Ancient star? (Score:5, Informative)

    by [rvr] ( 93881 ) on Wednesday December 31, 2003 @04:10PM (#7847871) Homepage Journal
    In Jennisken's paper 2003 EH1 is the Quadrantid shower parent comet [sjaa.net] is is stated that the source of the meteor shower is a comet... and cannot be different, because the debris nature of meteors. Ancient star cores are very compact and dense objects, with a higher mass than Jupiter.

  • On topic complaint (Score:3, Funny)

    by Bob Cat - NYMPHS ( 313647 ) on Wednesday December 31, 2003 @04:12PM (#7847890) Homepage
    This is an error-filled article, and Timothy should not have posted it. Do not bother to read it.
    Timothy should post a correction, and be more careful in the future.

  • It seems planet Klandathu hasn't perfected its technique yet.

  • Go easy on the autor ...he's apologised. (Score:5, Informative)

    by deglr6328 ( 150198 ) on Wednesday December 31, 2003 @08:30PM (#7849923)
    I emailed him from the address given in the article (not something I'd usually even consider doing but given the extremely poor quality of the article I did) and his reply follows:

    Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2003 13:13:40 -0800
    From: Perlman, David
    [ Add to Address Book | Block Address | Report as Spam ]
    To:
    Subject: RE: Quadrantids Article

    That article was written by me carelessly and in haste; we will publish a brief correction tomorrow, but I can only apologize for its total confusion. I've emailed everyone who complained and can only apologize again --it is far below my usual standards.
    -----Original Message-----
    From: roch1west@excite.com [mailto:roch1west@excite.com]
    Sent: Wednesday, December 31, 2003 12:49 PM
    To: Perlman, David
    Subject: Quadrantids Article

    I do believe this: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/ 12/31/MNGCC4152J1.DTL is the most poorly written science article I've ever read. It's too hard even to understand what you may have been trying to convey to the reader here; just plain bad. Somehow it was posted to Slashdot anyway though. Have fun reading the comments there! http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/12/3 1/1754258&mode=thread&tid=134&tid=160

  • one more thing he got wrong... (Score:3, Informative)

    by OneOver137 ( 674481 ) on Wednesday December 31, 2003 @09:13PM (#7850219) Journal
    Bootes is known as "The Herdsman", "The Ox Driver", or "The Ploughman". "The Hunter" is reserved for the constellation Orion.
  • Going against /. traditions, I sometimes read the atricle & then the comments. Ouch. All I got from the article was a profound sense of "Huh? That makes no sense." Reading the comments made me feel better (grin)

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