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

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PART III PPPPPPP Skies at Night Are Big and Bright If we dare journey beyond the Moon looking for bad astronomy, we’ll find a universe filled with weird things waiting to be misinterpreted. Meteors are a major source of bad astronomy. When two eighteenth-century Yale scientists proposed that meteors were coming from outer space, one wag responded, “I would more easily believe that two Yankee professors would lie than that stones would fall from heaven.” That wag was Thomas Jefferson. Thankfully, he stuck to other things like founding the University of Virginia (my alma mater) and running the country, and steered clear of astronomy. If you go outside on a cloudless night, you might see a meteor or two if you’re lucky. If you are not too close to a city and its accompanying light pollution, you’ll see hundreds or even thousands of stars. Like meteors, that starlight has come a long way; even the closest known star is a solid 40 trillion kilometers away. And like meteors, those stellar photons end up as so much fodder for our human misunderstanding of the cosmos. Stars have color, they twinkle, they come in different brightnesses, and all of these characteristics are subject to clumsy misidentification. Bad astronomy can often force the doomsayers out into the open, too. This happened in the years, months, and days leading up to the “Great” Planetary Alignment of May 2000. Last I checked, 87
88 SKIES AT NIGHT ARE BIG AND BRIGHT the world had not ended. Cries of doom always seem to pop up at solar eclipses as well. Long heralded as omens of the gods’ ill favor, eclipses are actually one of the most beautiful sights the sky provides. Finally, in this section we’ll travel back in time and space to where it all began, the Big Bang. Something about contemplating the beginning of everything twists our already tangled minds, and descriptions of the Big Bang usually confuse the issue more than unravel it. The irony of the Big Bang, I suppose, is that it is even odder than our oddest theories could possibly suppose.
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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
Page 49 and 50: 38 FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON and t
Page 51 and 52: 40 FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON body
Page 53 and 54: 42 FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON red l
Page 55 and 56: 44 FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON top o
Page 57 and 58: 46 FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON photo
Page 59 and 60: 5 PPPPPP A Dash of Seasons: Why Sum
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Page 63 and 64: 52 FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON Equat
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Page 75 and 76: 7 PPPPPP The Gravity of the Situati
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Page 83 and 84: 72 FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON Moon,
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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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138 SKIES AT NIGHT ARE BIG AND BRIG
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16 PPPPPP When the Universe Throws
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PART IV PPPPPPP Artificial Intellig
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17 PPPPPP Appalled at Apollo: Uncov
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APPALLED AT APOLLO 157 My question
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APPALLED AT APOLLO 159 Admittedly,
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APPALLED AT APOLLO 161 These belts
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APPALLED AT APOLLO 163 solid-state
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APPALLED AT APOLLO 165 However, you
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APPALLED AT APOLLO 167 flow well be
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APPALLED AT APOLLO 169 One of the m
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APPALLED AT APOLLO 171 The shadows
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APPALLED AT APOLLO 173 they put tog
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WORLDS IN DERISION 175 Many people
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WORLDS IN DERISION 177 Today, we wo
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WORLDS IN DERISION 179 do now for t
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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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