On Second Thought, Polaris Really Does Seem 434 Light Years Away 75
sciencehabit writes with this excerpt from Science Magazine "Last November, astronomer David Turner made headlines by claiming that one of the sky's best known objects—the North Star, Polaris—was actually 111 light-years closer than thought. If true, the finding might have forced researchers to rethink how they calculate distances in the cosmos as well as what they know about some aspects of stellar physics. But a new study argues that distance measurements of the familiar star made some 2 decades ago by the European Space Agency's venerable Hipparcos satellite are still spot on."
Ooops! (Score:2, Funny)
Looks like another mixup between metric and imperial measurement systems. /jk
Alas... (Score:5, Funny)
...eleventy-one light years is far too short a distance to travel among such excellent and admirable stellar phenomena.
Good riddance, I say. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:HOW LONG AT WARP 10 ?? (Score:4, Funny)
Oddly enough, the old Russian maxim applies here. One does not travel at warp, warp travels you.
Metric Mixup (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Good riddance, I say. (Score:3, Funny)
They're both right. (Score:5, Funny)
The Polarans solved FTL travel ages ago, and now use it to troll other civilisations by placing their star along some life-bearing planet's axis of rotation, waiting for people to develop advanced astronomy, then randomly feinting at them to mess with the scientists' heads.
Re:Metric Mixup (Score:5, Funny)
The Imperial system uses light fortnights (3.62628957 * 10^14 m), whereas the metric system uses light megaseconds (2.99792458 * 10^14 m).
One light year contains 31.536 light megaseconds, but only 26.07 light fortnights.
:-P
Re:The most important question... (Score:5, Funny)
Dude if you wat Science Fiction, check out the History channel. Every single show is about aliens in one way or another.