Bad Astronomy: Misconceptions and Misuses Revealed, from ...

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15 PPPPPP Meteors, Meteoroids, and Meteorites, Oh My!: The Impact of Meteors and Asteroids O n December 4, 2000, at roughly 5:00 P.M., something fell out of the sky and landed in David and Donna Ayoub’s backyard in Salisbury, New Hampshire. Witnesses say the object was moving rapidly and glowing hot. When it landed, it set two small fires a couple of meters apart on the Ayoubs’ property. The couple quickly ran outside to put them out. The event certainly brought a lot of attention to the town. At first, it was a small story in the news section of the local newspaper, the Concord Monitor. However, the story was quickly picked up by an e-mail list sent out to astronomers interested in asteroid, meteor, and comet impacts. Soon the Ayoubs were receiving phone calls and were welcoming news media from all around the world. Everyone wanted to hear about what they saw, and most people assumed it was a meteorite impact. I was skeptical when I heard the story the next day. I decided to look into this myself, so I phoned several of the witnesses. These people were sincere, and really wanted to know what had happened. After listening to them I believe that something truly did fall from the sky and set two fires. However, I don’t think it was a meteorite, whatever it was. 133
134 SKIES AT NIGHT ARE BIG AND BRIGHT Why don’t I believe it was a meteorite? Well, that’s a tale of bad astronomy. PPP I’ve always felt sorry for small meteors. A given meteoroid may spend billions of years orbiting the Sun, perhaps first as part of a magnificent comet or an asteroid. Finally, after countless times around the Sun, its path intersects the Earth. It closes in on the Earth at a velocity that can be as high as 100 kilometers (60 miles) per second. Upon contact with our atmosphere, the tremendous speed is converted to heat, and, unless the meteoroid is too big (say, bigger than a breadbox), that heat vaporizes the tiny rock. From our vantage point on the Earth’s surface, the meteoroid generates a bright streak that may or may not be seen by human eyes. After all those billions of years, the life of that small rock is over in a few seconds, and no one might even see it. But its story doesn’t end there. When I am asked to name the most common example of bad astronomy, I almost always answer: meteors. Nearly everyone who is capable has seen a meteor flashing across the sky, yet, ironically, most people don’t understand them at all. Worse, even the naming of the phenomenon gets confused. Some people call them “shooting stars,” but of course they aren’t really stars. In chapter 3, “Idiom’s Delight,” I go over the three names describing the various stages of the rock: The solid part is called a meteoroid both while out in space and passing through our atmosphere, the glow of the meteoroid as it passes through the atmosphere is called a meteor, and it’s a meteorite when (or if) it hits the ground. But giving them names doesn’t help much. We need to know what’s going on during those stages. A meteoroid starts out life as part of a bigger body, usually as either a comet or an asteroid. Asteroids can collide with each other, violently flinging out material or, in a worst-case scenario, shattering the parent body completely. Either way, you get debris going off rapidly in all directions. That debris can take on new orbits, where
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Bad Astronomy PPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP
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Bad Astronomy PPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP
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CONTENTS Introduction 1 PART I Bad
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CONTENTS vii Recommended Reading 25
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2 BAD ASTRONOMY luminous, against a
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4 BAD ASTRONOMY who fully well knew
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6 BAD ASTRONOMY But if they cannot
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PART I PPPPPP Bad Astronomy Begins
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1 PPPPPP The Yolk’s on You: Egg B
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THE YOLK’S ON YOU 13 and they mak
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THE YOLK’S ON YOU 15 ished announ
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THE YOLK’S ON YOU 17 Of course it
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THE YOLK’S ON YOU 19 with the wea
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2 PPPPPP Flushed with Embarrassment
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FLUSHED WITH EMBARRASSMENT 23 much
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FLUSHED WITH EMBARRASSMENT 25 Equat
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FLUSHED WITH EMBARRASSMENT 27 still
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IDIOM’S DELIGHT 29 press my heigh
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IDIOM’S DELIGHT 31 friend about w
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IDIOM’S DELIGHT 33 Incidentally,
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IDIOM’S DELIGHT 35 So you might c
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38 FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON and t
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40 FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON body
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42 FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON red l
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44 FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON top o
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46 FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON photo
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5 PPPPPP A Dash of Seasons: Why Sum
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50 FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON Clear
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52 FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON Equat
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54 FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON Howev
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56 FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON the S
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58 FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON These
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60 FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON the d
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62 FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON That
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7 PPPPPP The Gravity of the Situati
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66 FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON is co
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68 FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON a poi
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70 FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON you
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72 FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON Moon,
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74 FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON that
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76 FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON galax
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78 FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON that
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80 FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON exact
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Page 95 and 96: 84 FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON But n
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Page 127 and 128: 13 PPPPPP Shadows in the Sky: Eclip
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Page 153 and 154: 16 PPPPPP When the Universe Throws
Page 164 and 165: PART IV PPPPPPP Artificial Intellig
Page 166 and 167: 17 PPPPPP Appalled at Apollo: Uncov
Page 168 and 169: APPALLED AT APOLLO 157 My question
Page 170 and 171: APPALLED AT APOLLO 159 Admittedly,
Page 172 and 173: APPALLED AT APOLLO 161 These belts
Page 174 and 175: APPALLED AT APOLLO 163 solid-state
Page 176 and 177: APPALLED AT APOLLO 165 However, you
Page 178 and 179: APPALLED AT APOLLO 167 flow well be
Page 180 and 181: APPALLED AT APOLLO 169 One of the m
Page 182 and 183: APPALLED AT APOLLO 171 The shadows
Page 184 and 185: APPALLED AT APOLLO 173 they put tog
Page 186 and 187: WORLDS IN DERISION 175 Many people
Page 188 and 189: WORLDS IN DERISION 177 Today, we wo
Page 190 and 191: WORLDS IN DERISION 179 do now for t
Page 192 and 193: WORLDS IN DERISION 181 This premise
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WORLDS IN DERISION 183 Venus’ orb
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WORLDS IN DERISION 185 or mainstrea
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19 PPPPPP In the Beginning: Creatio
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IN THE BEGINNING 189 want to believ
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IN THE BEGINNING 191 squarely at th
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IN THE BEGINNING 193 tem started ou
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IN THE BEGINNING 195 it’s natural
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( a.) ( b.) ( c.) IN THE BEGINNING
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IN THE BEGINNING 199 their lives, e
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IN THE BEGINNING 201 ence isn’t l
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MISIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTS 203 la
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MISIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTS 205 In
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MISIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTS 207 an
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MISIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTS 209 Ne
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MISIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTS 211 ni
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MARS IS IN THE SEVENTH HOUSE 213 Th
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MARS IS IN THE SEVENTH HOUSE 215 as
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MARS IS IN THE SEVENTH HOUSE 217 Mi
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MARS IS IN THE SEVENTH HOUSE 219 of
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PART V PPPPPP Beam Me Up We’ve tr
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22 PPPPPP Hubble Trouble: Hubble Sp
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HUBBLE TROUBLE 225 The Hubble Space
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HUBBLE TROUBLE 227 A DROP IN THE BU
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HUBBLE TROUBLE 229 for space telesc
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HUBBLE TROUBLE 231 staking your sci
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HUBBLE TROUBLE 233 also used to say
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HUBBLE TROUBLE 235 can assure you t
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STAR HUSTLERS 237 That’s a tall o
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STAR HUSTLERS 239 the names aren’
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STAR HUSTLERS 241 I’ll note that
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STAR HUSTLERS 243 The star “Phili
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24 PPPPPP Bad Astronomy Goes Hollyw
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BAD ASTRONOMY GOES HOLLYWOOD 247 ar
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BAD ASTRONOMY GOES HOLLYWOOD 249 si
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BAD ASTRONOMY GOES HOLLYWOOD 251 it
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BAD ASTRONOMY GOES HOLLYWOOD 253 Tr
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BAD ASTRONOMY GOES HOLLYWOOD 255 In
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BAD ASTRONOMY GOES HOLLYWOOD 257 Si
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260 RECOMMENDED READING with the ma
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262 RECOMMENDED READING One of the
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264 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Vergano, for gi
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266 INDEX “Astrology: Science or
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268 INDEX earthquakes, 130, 182 pla
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270 INDEX Islam, 58-59 “It’s Sp
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272 INDEX neutrons, 34 in stars, 98
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274 INDEX Sirius, 100, 107 size con
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276 INDEX triangles, 148 true scien
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