Study Concludes "Planet" Was Just Stellar Spots 132
Kligat writes "Back in January, it was reported that the youngest planet ever to be discovered, about ten times the mass of Jupiter, was orbiting the eight- to ten-million-year-old star TW Hydrae. Now a Spanish research team has concluded that TW Hydrae b doesn't exist, and that cold spots on the star's surface actually produced the dip in brightness instead of a transiting planet. Not as cool as if a planet had actually been there, but refutations are science, too, right?"
It's Science! (Score:5, Insightful)
People are trying to figure out the unknown, and don't always get it right the first time.
The popular press may spin it differently for the layman, but this is how science works.
Re:It's Science! (Score:5, Insightful)
You beat me to this point.
It is very important to be able to see 'cool spots' on stars other than our sun. We don't even understand our solar cycle yet and seeing what goes on on other stars will help us understand our Sun and Earth.
If this is the first time that this has been observed there should be more hype on this subject. There are many, many people on earth that will take notice and attempt to repeat.
If this 'spot' is so huge that we can detect it - what would be the ramifications if our sun got the same sized spot?
Others were discovered from wobble (Score:5, Insightful)
I doubt it, because most other measurements were based upon the apparent wobbling of the parent star, not direct observation. This one, AFAIK, was tied to an attempt to "see" the planet transition across the parent star. Actually, I was of the frame of mind to think this is almost as exciting (if not more so) than a planetary discovery. If we can detect "cold spots" on an alien star, there's all sorts of fascinating implications.
From the article:
Impressive! There's a lot we may be able to learn about our own sun by monitoring the daily happenings of other stars. Things like the frequency of solar maximums, sunspots, and so forth on other stars comparing them with our own would be one such course of study.
Using up your mainstream interest (Score:2, Insightful)
The exo-planet scientists are bumbling [quantumg.net] their way into obscurity. The public does not understand science. They don't understand small discoveries. They don't understand "backwards" discoveries like this one. Currently there is some interest in inferring that planets may exist around other stars, but it is quickly becoming a passing interest and the media attention is quickly turning from awe to skepticism (and not the good kind of skepticism required for science). It's like the 60s when inference of planetary atmospheres using starlight was proposed.. the interest was strong but no-one actually did the experiment for so long that when probes were proposed to go and directly measure the atmosphere of Venus the results of starlight interferometry were completely ignored.. and that was in the scientific community, which has a much longer attention span than the mainstream.
Re:It's Science! (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly. Without debate and opposition, science is no better than religion.
Re:I don't RTFA (Score:1, Insightful)
Very insightful. Also a little alarming -- if our planet is a stellar spot, global warming means it is disappearing.
Re:It's Science! (Score:4, Insightful)
The popular press may spin it differently for the layman, but this is how science works.
It's best to ignore the popular press.
Re:It's Science! (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, but a debate must include facts and observations, not just opinion.
Re:Makes me wonder... (Score:5, Insightful)
How many other 'facts' about things in the universe might merely be tainted observations?
Likely, several. But that doesn't lessen the value of the work at all. If something appears to work in a particular way, it probably does. If it turns out it doesn't, then the last body of evidence isn't just "thrown away" - it's just tweaked a little more - the previous assumptions, even if wrong, can still serve a useful purpose for explaining things.
Right now, we're pretty certain that there's a black hole at the centre of most (or maybe all) galaxies. We might be wrong. There might be a large, as yet unknown, type of gravity source there that is NOT a black hole. If that turns out to be the case though, it's not a bad thing for science - since every model so far works nicely with a black hole in that position, it will continue to work with a black hole in that position even if there isn't one. Just as Newtonian physics is wrong, but still serves as a very useful set of mathematics for most situations.
So many times I read the most fantastical things astronmers have discovered a billion light-years away, and I think, how do they really know that? When there's that much distance, couldn't there be something out there fooling with their observation?
Yes, there could - which is why we do lots of experiments regarding the kinds of things which may mess up observations as well. Could there be other things? Absolutely. Could that mean we're wrong about a lot of stuff we're observing? Yes, it could. Would that be catastrophic to science? Not at all - we'd have a lot of new things to study! We can build up a very accurate but completely incorrect model of the universe and as long as it's valid from our frame of reference, it can be useful for doing things.
Imagine if it turns out that MOND is probably correct - it doesn't automatically mean all the research in to dark matter has been wasted - a lot of that research could be used as "test cases" for MOND, to help "prove" it. If any of our information about dark matter gave results that could NOT be explained by MOND, we'd have to concede that either the observations are wrong (and then explain how), or that MOND is wrong. Either way, we enhance our understanding, which is good.
and I don't believe it is just the public mis-interpreting something that the scientists said was 'probable'. A lot of these guys pass off their discoveries as facts.
Anyone who does so is being dishonest - that's a problem of the people explaining the science, not of the science itself. That said though, if anyone ever tells me something is "fact", I take it to mean, "all current evidence points towards this being the case and we can't imagine any realistic way that this could not be the case". So, even if some scientists are being dishonest and saying something is fact, then it's STILL the public's misunderstanding of science that is at least partly to blame if they get all upset when new data points to a different answer. I myself am dishonest in this exact way whenever I tell someone that "gravity pulls you down towards the earth", or "We evolved from simpler life over a LONG period of time". I am presenting these theories as facts, because any alternative is completely inconceivable to me, and it's just quicker than explaining, "Given all the available evidence, it appears as if, from your reference frame, gravity will pull you towards the earth". For less well entrenched theories, I tend to avoid such strong statements, and prefer the "longer" explanation, but the meaning should be considered pretty much the same. If clarification is needed, then you should ask how strong the evidence is that points to this theory being correct.
Popper-esque (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Makes me wonder... (Score:4, Insightful)
What I want to know is this: At what point in the history of Slashdot did it become necessary to explain and defend the fundamental philosophies of science?
Seems this place has suffered along with digg when every 12 year old and their Wii were granted internet acess...?
Re:Makes me wonder... (Score:3, Insightful)
How do we know there are such things as negative numbers? Cuz 5 - 8 has to equal something. Then we find a use for the newly invented "negatives", and find that it just works. What about imaginary numbers? The new negatives have to have a 'square root', and the square root of -1 has to equal something. And so on. Eventually, the preponderance of what works with 'negatives' and 'imaginaries' and all that other stuff leads to acceptance.
I don't believe it is just the public mis-interpreting something that the scientists said was 'probable'. A lot of these guys pass off their discoveries as facts.
Please give an example.
A few years back, a scientist produced findings on meteorite ALH94001 that suggested life on Mars. I watched the press release live, since he was the friend of a friend and was tipped it was coming up.
A publication involved in peer-reviewing the article about it was going to break embargo and release early, forcing Dr. McKay to release before he was ready.
Throughout the press release, he kept saying, "This rock passes all current tests for proving the existence of microfossils in earth rocks. It may be life, or we may have to change or add to the tests". Over and over; he said he was using new equipment that could see things better than before, and differently than before; he said he was putting his findings out there so that other scientists could improve the science. He was careful not to tout it as "fact".
Of course, that's not what the non-scientific media heard or reported. As a result of ALH94001, tests were improved, new things were learned about microfossilization, formation of nanoscale structures, etc.
Realize that science is an economy where the currency is reputation, not cash. It cannot be sold or transferred to another; it can be lost forever; it is seldom lost and regained. Every scientist knows that brightest minds in her/his field will be microanalyzing his/her work. This keeps one humble.
Yes, they are. (Score:3, Insightful)
> but refutations are science, too, right?
Absolutely. And it is precisely that which distinguishes it from religion.
Under what circumstances can ID be refuted?