Space Telescope Reveals Weird Star Cluster Conundrum 80
astroengine (1577233) writes "We thought we had star formation mechanisms pinned down, but according to new observations of two star clusters, it seems our understanding of how stars are born is less than stellar. When zooming in on the young star clusters of NGC 2024 (in the center of the Flame Nebula) and the Orion Nebula Cluster, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory teamed up with infrared telescopes to take a census of star ages. Conventional thinking suggests that stars closest to the center of a given star cluster should be the oldest and the youngest stars can be found around the edges. However, to their surprise, astronomers have discovered that the opposite is true: 'Our findings are counterintuitive,' said Konstantin Getman of Penn State University, lead scientist of this new study. 'It means we need to think harder and come up with more ideas of how stars like our sun are formed.'"
It's pretty simple, really (Score:4, Funny)
A couple of billion years ago, stars *did* form from the gravitational collapse of vast clouds of dust and gas. But around that time, the Tenctonese in Andromeda went through their 3D printing revolution and ever since then, most stars are 3D printed. It's the future, and only Luddites would think otherwise.
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The universe is spooky and weird! We don't want to know that shit!! Ban telescopes immediately!!!
Re:I really object to this (Score:5, Insightful)
in the eyes of doubters of science, this is taken literally and used to discredit science, time and time again.
Why write that shit? To the untrained eye it says "this just in: science WRONG again!".
Why the fuck should we care about the eyes of doubters of science?! Under no circumstance should we change our behavior to please those who refuse to think.
If someone believes science is wrong it's his problem, not ours.
Suppressing information to not disturb the flimsy grasp of reality makes no sense. Let our knowledge be seen, the successes and the mistakes, and let those who cover their eyes live in their puerile fantasies.
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Why the fuck should we care about the eyes of doubters of science?! Under no circumstance should we change our behavior to please those who refuse to think.
Unfortunately,as an actual science working on a federal grant, you have to care about doubters because they can affect public policy and funding decisions even for non-controversial work. Even if most of the politicians aren't actually in that category, they'll feign interest in such people to help their own agenda. And in the bigger picture, part of a scientists job should be trying to make their work accessible to as many people as possible.
It also doesn't help that a large amount of the general populat
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I think the point they were making was not to stop doing science, or publishing. Instead its the problem with the reporting of science. Everything has to have drama and conflict.
The news makes it seem like every new paper is a paradigm changing event. Where as from the point of view of people who are doing this work its another piece of information to help improve our understanding.
The biggest problems is when popular news makes people think science is just stories, it seems to change every other week from
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Wait, what is science supposed to know? And why should science be against admitting that half the stuff they 'know' they don't really 'know'? Isn't that the whole point, to show that science is constantly approaching a workable approximation
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Except that simulation mentioned yesterday didn't have the resolution to see processes discussed here, wasn't claiming to be perfect, and wasn't published in Science.
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To the untrained eye it says "this just in: science WRONG again!".
And isn't it awesome? More stuff to learn, new things to unearth! One of the coolest science shows I've seen recently is Neil deGrasse Tyson's "the inexplicable universe" lectures - all about things we do not understand yet.
It doesn't matter all that much that quite a few people think that science being wrong is a bad thing, as long as enough actual scientists know that science being wrong is how it works. Without science finding wrong bits or inexplicable bits how would we know where to keep digging an
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And, to a scientist's eye (or anyone who knows how science works), saying "the established science is wrong" is very exciting. Unlike the bible which never changes* despite new evidence, science adapts. As old theories are proven to be incomplete or wrong, they are either fixed or ditched entirely to make way for new theories. Science is never considered "100% right", but it is always "the best approximation we have at the time given the available evidence."
Unfortunately, as I've seen first hand, some re
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And, to a scientist's eye (or anyone who knows how science works), saying "the established science is wrong" is very exciting. Unlike the bible which never changes* despite new evidence, science adapts. As old theories are proven to be incomplete or wrong, they are either fixed or ditched entirely to make way for new theories. Science is never considered "100% right", but it is always "the best approximation we have at the time given the available evidence."
Unfortunately, as I've seen first hand, some religious types consider changing to adapt to new evidence as scary and a weakness and staying the same no matter what to be safe and a strength.
If anyone thought "science knew everything" or anything like that, then they need to take a long, hard look at science and realize that it does not.
Thus, the unchanging bible* is good and changing science is bad/scary.
* While these religious folks like to think of the bible as unchanging and the text is (in most cases over short-term history) unchanging, the interpretations of it can change wildly. Case in point: Slavery is condemned by most religious folks now but, pre-Civil War, many religious people rationalized slavery saying that the bible clearly showed how some people were supposed to be slaves to other people. In short, the "bible is unchanging" argument is garbage because the bible can say pretty much anything you want it to say.
And now to digress...
1) Your point on slavery has nothing to do with the "bible changing" or even its interpretation. The bible still says the same thing it always has regarding slavery, and the interpretation is the same. The difference is the popular opinion that slavery in any form is bad; the American Civil War occurred as the world-wide opinion on slaver
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1) I know that the "bible changing" on slavery was interpretation only. Unfortunately, too many religious folks confuse "what the bible says" with "what some person interprets it to say." The former (exact wording) doesn't change except in exceptional circumstances (translations, mostly). The latter changes all the time. In fact, you could go to five different religious scholars and get five different answers as to what a section of text means. But those same religious folks who tout the bible as being
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The latter changes all the time. In fact, you could go to five different religious scholars and get five different answers as to what a section of text means.
If you only get 5 different translations you may be doing good. More likely than not, each will have their own translation but will also provide one or more alternate translations. This is the case whenever any kind of translation is involved namely because translating language is not a 1:1 translation - more likely than not the words in one language will have nuances that are not existent in the other language, or will have a one to many translation.
But those same religious folks who tout the bible as being so good because (in part) it is unchanging are usually the same ones who will tout their interpretation of the bible's text as being the "unchanging truth."
Mostly because the majority of people reading the Bible
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If anyone thought "science knew everything" or anything like that, then they need to take a long, hard look at science and realize that it does not.
I don't think I've met in person anyone over the age of 12 that thought science knew everything. But I've met quite a few people who thought scientists and/or pro-science types believed science knew everything.
Outside of /. and the media, I'd say that's generally true.
"That's funny..." (Score:5, Insightful)
This reminds me of one of favorite Isaac Asimov quotes:
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka" but "That's funny..."
I hope this leads them to go get more data in addition to thinking harder and coming up with ideas.
No, that's not funny. (Score:2)
Now, THAT's funny! (Score:2)
But I think he's living at his mother Jan Kowalski's basement at:
At least, that's where he wants users of his hostfile manager to send him money.
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This reminds me of one of favorite Isaac Asimov quotes:
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka" but "That's funny..."
In engineering that usually means that something is about to blow up into someones face.
Whenever I hear someone say "That's funny" I take a step back.
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In engineering that usually means that something is about to blow up into someones face.
It takes an engineer to make a scientist's work truly dangerous.
Engineering != Science. (Score:2)
You give A/C's a bad name. (Score:2)
But I think he's living at his mother Jan Kowalski's basement at:
At least, that's where he wants users of his hostfile manager to send him money.
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Keep beating that dead horse!
+1 Punny (Score:5, Informative)
it seems our understanding of how stars are born is less than stellar.
A shining example of +1 Punny.
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it seems our understanding of how stars are born is less than stellar.
A shining example of +1 Punny.
Nah. Whoever wrote that wasn't very bright.
Re:ORLY? (Score:5, Informative)
Physicists (whether it be on the cosmos or climate change) are starting to sound like Richard Nixon spin doctors. Which is it?
The reporters who present the physicists findings are usually the ones putting a spin on it.
Unless it is qunatum mechanic (Score:2)
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Integral or non-integral spin?
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Counter-intuitive? (Score:2)
Cue the electric universe people to come tell us their magnetic-dynamo repulsion theory.
old news! (Score:5, Funny)
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This just proofs that science is not a religion, it is not expected to have all the answers.
If you think it should have then you are pretty clueless about it.
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The day that science has all the answers all the time will be a very sad day indeed. Half of the fun of science is finding new things and saying "That shouldn't be doing that..." (Of course, while science doesn't have *all* the answers, it is much closer to the answers than anything else we have.)
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Believing that no gods exist does not necessitate the belief that science (or anything else for that matter) can come up with "all of the answers".
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Who thought science had all the answers? I don't know anybody who thinks that.
One science article without a weird bent? (Score:1)
Can we have one science article that doesn't essentially say "everything we ever knew is wrong"... stop sensationalizing this crap. It's more than just annoying, it's anti-intellectualist
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Can we have one science article that doesn't essentially say "everything we ever knew is wrong"...
Based on experience, no.
Spinning and expansion (Score:1)
A) objects form near the center
B) older objects are toward the outside (younger objects near the center)
Since we've been observing expansion of the galaxy it would be logical to assume "these things expand in general". I don't see a problem.
So in conclusion, the assumption that older objects would be in the center was the flawed logic.
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Therefore, the actual area where the stars are appears to be expanding. Not that any individual object is expanding.
In other words, if I draw a circle around the solar system then wait a billion years and do it again...if the planets are further from the sun I can say that the solar
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What I was referring to is Centrifugal force.
There's no centrifugal force, only centripetal force caused by mutual attraction. Except if you do funny and unnecessarily complex coordinate transformations. Which you possibly couldn't do if you happened to be tied to a human-sized centrifuge and about to be squished by those forces.
Birth. Life. Death. (Score:3)
Anyway, I am really not qualified to even have that thought, but at least it would probably make for a good science-fiction story.
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I doubt it. While there is many things we will learn the basic reaction of gravity ~ heat + hydrogen to helium is well understood by quantum mechanics. We have billions of examples of stars to cross check this. Comparing mentality of stars against their evolution.
On the bright side, even if we only have 1 million years left, if we haven't left earth by then its only because we have already killed ourselves.
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Why? (Score:2)
Does anyone understand why this conventional wisdom took hold?
These are open clusters. Over time, stars will leave the region of their birth. That would suggest to me that the oldest stars would be on the edges, and the newest, in the center, which was exactly what was observed. So why, exactly, was the prior belief the opposite?
Halton Arp (Score:1)
I'm not going to push this too much as it's an astro heresy ... but I found it an interesting read:
http://www.haltonarp.com/articles