A Toilet-Like Vortex of Bad Astronomy Bad is getting science wrong. Worse is getting science wrong because of mystical woo. Worstest is having that bad science go viral. The video discussed below has been featured on big sites like Kottke.org and I Love Charts, which shows how fast this stuff can spread. In the case of the “solar system as a vortex” videos, we have reached the darkest, worstest timeline. But science is here to help. Phil Plait has debunked this in gloriously gory detail, so please, please go read that. And stop sharing this bad science. Share this instead. First of all, that’s a helix, not a vortex. But that doesn’t matter. The planets do not trail behind the sun. It’s simply not based in reality. You can easily test this just by keeping track of the planets in the sky, and tens of thousands of people have done this throughout history. In a second video, the creator shows the planets orbiting a moving sun like a rotating drill bit. This is not the case. The solar system is indeed tipped 60˚ with respect to the galaxy. But sometimes planets are ahead of the sun and sometimes they are behind the sun. Also, the solar system does bob up and down across the galactic plane, but only once every 64 million years (this is due to the disk’s internal gravity, because it’s made of stuff). Much like a wobbling top, the Earth will “wobble” in its rotation around every 26,000 years (Google “procession” for more), but this has nothing to do with the claims of the video (although it is why the North Star won’t always be in the north). Much like how if I am walking forward at 3 mph on a train going 70 mph, I am not going 73 mph. I am going 3 mph, just in a different frame of reference. The speed of our solar wind pushing outward on intergalactic space is much higher than the speed we are traveling around the galaxy, and there’s no reason to think that all that out there is going to affect us in here. DJ Sadhu, who sadly spins lies rather than records, explains why someone would want to make all this up on his site. Enter at your own risk. Basically it’s an appeal for a model that doesn’t have us returning to the same place every year. That might sound spiritually superior, but it’s also BS. TIme moves forward, the planets and the sun move in predictable, well-studied patterns, and regardless of our position in the galaxy, the years are ours to make different. And we do a pretty good job of that without videos like this. It kind of sucks that all it takes to spread BS is a few weeks with 3D animation software and an internet connection, but hey … it can be a force for good as much as it is bad. Now commence getting this post a bazillion notes, or else the vortex will get us all.
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A Toilet-Like Vortex of Bad Astronomy

Bad is getting science wrong. Worse is getting science wrong because of mystical woo. Worstest is having that bad science go viral. The video discussed below has been featured on big sites like Kottke.org and I Love Charts, which shows how fast this stuff can spread.

In the case of the “solar system as a vortex” videos, we have reached the darkest, worstest timeline. But science is here to help. Phil Plait has debunked this in gloriously gory detail, so please, please go read that. And stop sharing this bad science. Share this instead.

First of all, that’s a helix, not a vortex. But that doesn’t matter. The planets do not trail behind the sun. It’s simply not based in reality. You can easily test this just by keeping track of the planets in the sky, and tens of thousands of people have done this throughout history.

In a second video, the creator shows the planets orbiting a moving sun like a rotating drill bit. This is not the case. The solar system is indeed tipped 60˚ with respect to the galaxy. But sometimes planets are ahead of the sun and sometimes they are behind the sun. Also, the solar system does bob up and down across the galactic plane, but only once every 64 million years (this is due to the disk’s internal gravity, because it’s made of stuff). Much like a wobbling top, the Earth will “wobble” in its rotation around every 26,000 years (Google “procession” for more), but this has nothing to do with the claims of the video (although it is why the North Star won’t always be in the north).

Much like how if I am walking forward at 3 mph on a train going 70 mph, I am not going 73 mph. I am going 3 mph, just in a different frame of reference. The speed of our solar wind pushing outward on intergalactic space is much higher than the speed we are traveling around the galaxy, and there’s no reason to think that all that out there is going to affect us in here.

DJ Sadhu, who sadly spins lies rather than records, explains why someone would want to make all this up on his site. Enter at your own risk. Basically it’s an appeal for a model that doesn’t have us returning to the same place every year. That might sound spiritually superior, but it’s also BS. TIme moves forward, the planets and the sun move in predictable, well-studied patterns, and regardless of our position in the galaxy, the years are ours to make different. And we do a pretty good job of that without videos like this.

It kind of sucks that all it takes to spread BS is a few weeks with 3D animation software and an internet connection, but hey … it can be a force for good as much as it is bad. Now commence getting this post a bazillion notes, or else the vortex will get us all.

The Auroras, Earth’s Art Show!

Hey folks, the next episode of It’s Okay to be Smart is up on YouTube! If you like pretty sky stuff, you’ll like this one.

Space might seem like an empty place, but the area surrounding Earth is constantly being bombarded by waves of charged particles released by the Sun: The solar wind. Luckily, thanks to Earth’s swirling, molten core (and the magnetic field it provides), we are protected from this planet-sterilizing onslaught with an invisible force field.

All that science has a beautiful side effect: It makes the auroras! The Northern and Southern lights are the result of the solar wind and its dance with Earth’s magnetic field and polar atmosphere. It’s like our own cosmic light show!

Head on over to the YouTube channel and subscribe for more great science. Be sure to check out the last episode while you’re there, a cosmic love story featuring Ann and Carl (about our search for alien civilizations). If you’d like to see something on a future episode or tell me wheat you think, send me a message or leave a comment on the video!

Source: youtube.com

Fleeting Mercury Mercury travels behind our celestial sphere on a short leash, its short orbit obscuring it from view thanks to the Sun’s intense light. Only during moments of twilight, in the time between when the solar disk has sunk and Mercury trails behind it, is the solar system’s smallest planet visible, and only then during certain times of year. Here it is captured by Juan Carlos Casado during the month of March 2000, its fleeting hop above the horizon tracked in several combined photos. In fact, the planet’s name itself derives from the god Mercury’s fleeting and erratic nature. (via APOD)
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Fleeting Mercury

Mercury travels behind our celestial sphere on a short leash, its short orbit obscuring it from view thanks to the Sun’s intense light. Only during moments of twilight, in the time between when the solar disk has sunk and Mercury trails behind it, is the solar system’s smallest planet visible, and only then during certain times of year.

Here it is captured by Juan Carlos Casado during the month of March 2000, its fleeting hop above the horizon tracked in several combined photos.

In fact, the planet’s name itself derives from the god Mercury’s fleeting and erratic nature.

(via APOD)

Source: apod.nasa.gov

The continental U.S. overlaid on the Moon, for your daily dose of perspective. Whoa. Compare the size of the craters to our biggest cities! To take your dose of perspective to the next level, check out this video from Veritasium on just how far away the Moon is from the Earth (Hint: Much farther than most people think): (via io9)
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The continental U.S. overlaid on the Moon, for your daily dose of perspective. Whoa. Compare the size of the craters to our biggest cities!

To take your dose of perspective to the next level, check out this video from Veritasium on just how far away the Moon is from the Earth (Hint: Much farther than most people think):

(via io9)

Source: io9.com

Solar Palette If you look at the Sun (which you shouldn’t, ever), you just see white light (for the second or so before your retinas are permanently scorched. That’s a mixture of all wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum that our eyes respond to, between 390 and 700 nanometers (or about 3,900 to 7,000 angstroms). And there is a lot we can learn about the Sun by viewing it in that range, from studying its undulating surface swirls to its rotation.  But scientists at places like NASA can learn even more by extending their “eyes” beyond the visible.That’s what this new mosaic from the Solar Dynamics Observatory shows us. It represents all of SDO’s detectable wavelengths and the ions and temperatures that those wavelengths represent. Viewing each of those can tell us a deeper, richer story of the solar physics at work in and on the fusion-powered energy source that feeds our planet. I’ve captured the false colored hues that NASA scientists assign to each and put it in a digital palette. I can’t help but feel a bit amazed at not only the extreme temperatures at play (millions of Kelvin!) but also the extreme beauty. Our Sun is the best sun. To dig into more detail about each wavelength and what it measures, check out this NASA article.
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Solar Palette If you look at the Sun (which you shouldn’t, ever), you just see white light (for the second or so before your retinas are permanently scorched. That’s a mixture of all wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum that our eyes respond to, between 390 and 700 nanometers (or about 3,900 to 7,000 angstroms). And there is a lot we can learn about the Sun by viewing it in that range, from studying its undulating surface swirls to its rotation.  But scientists at places like NASA can learn even more by extending their “eyes” beyond the visible.That’s what this new mosaic from the Solar Dynamics Observatory shows us. It represents all of SDO’s detectable wavelengths and the ions and temperatures that those wavelengths represent. Viewing each of those can tell us a deeper, richer story of the solar physics at work in and on the fusion-powered energy source that feeds our planet. I’ve captured the false colored hues that NASA scientists assign to each and put it in a digital palette. I can’t help but feel a bit amazed at not only the extreme temperatures at play (millions of Kelvin!) but also the extreme beauty. Our Sun is the best sun. To dig into more detail about each wavelength and what it measures, check out this NASA article.
Zoom Info

Solar Palette

If you look at the Sun (which you shouldn’t, ever), you just see white light (for the second or so before your retinas are permanently scorched. That’s a mixture of all wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum that our eyes respond to, between 390 and 700 nanometers (or about 3,900 to 7,000 angstroms). And there is a lot we can learn about the Sun by viewing it in that range, from studying its undulating surface swirls to its rotation. 

But scientists at places like NASA can learn even more by extending their “eyes” beyond the visible.That’s what this new mosaic from the Solar Dynamics Observatory shows us. It represents all of SDO’s detectable wavelengths and the ions and temperatures that those wavelengths represent. Viewing each of those can tell us a deeper, richer story of the solar physics at work in and on the fusion-powered energy source that feeds our planet.

I’ve captured the false colored hues that NASA scientists assign to each and put it in a digital palette. I can’t help but feel a bit amazed at not only the extreme temperatures at play (millions of Kelvin!) but also the extreme beauty. Our Sun is the best sun.

To dig into more detail about each wavelength and what it measures, check out this NASA article.

staceythinx: Astronomy by Taylor Allen is an “ongoing personal project exploring the human form and the organic nature of deep space formations”.  Stunning work. Which do you think is more exquisitely built? The cosmos or the human form?  One is a seemingly infinite collection of various condensations of matter, all expanding outward from the same genesis, existing independently across immense distances that turn even the simplest observations into time travel. The other is a localized collection of biological units, each dependent on the summed contributions of the whole, and even on the contributions of life beyond itself, in order to exist at all. As the cosmos does, it arises from a single genesis, but its growth and organization rely on an intensely intricate choreography of signals, relationships and cooperation across distances small enough that we don’t distinguish them from the body as a whole. One is built out small bits of the other, but the larger, in a way, does not exist except that it has been named by the smaller.
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staceythinx: Astronomy by Taylor Allen is an “ongoing personal project exploring the human form and the organic nature of deep space formations”.  Stunning work. Which do you think is more exquisitely built? The cosmos or the human form?  One is a seemingly infinite collection of various condensations of matter, all expanding outward from the same genesis, existing independently across immense distances that turn even the simplest observations into time travel. The other is a localized collection of biological units, each dependent on the summed contributions of the whole, and even on the contributions of life beyond itself, in order to exist at all. As the cosmos does, it arises from a single genesis, but its growth and organization rely on an intensely intricate choreography of signals, relationships and cooperation across distances small enough that we don’t distinguish them from the body as a whole. One is built out small bits of the other, but the larger, in a way, does not exist except that it has been named by the smaller.
Zoom Info
staceythinx: Astronomy by Taylor Allen is an “ongoing personal project exploring the human form and the organic nature of deep space formations”.  Stunning work. Which do you think is more exquisitely built? The cosmos or the human form?  One is a seemingly infinite collection of various condensations of matter, all expanding outward from the same genesis, existing independently across immense distances that turn even the simplest observations into time travel. The other is a localized collection of biological units, each dependent on the summed contributions of the whole, and even on the contributions of life beyond itself, in order to exist at all. As the cosmos does, it arises from a single genesis, but its growth and organization rely on an intensely intricate choreography of signals, relationships and cooperation across distances small enough that we don’t distinguish them from the body as a whole. One is built out small bits of the other, but the larger, in a way, does not exist except that it has been named by the smaller.
Zoom Info
staceythinx: Astronomy by Taylor Allen is an “ongoing personal project exploring the human form and the organic nature of deep space formations”.  Stunning work. Which do you think is more exquisitely built? The cosmos or the human form?  One is a seemingly infinite collection of various condensations of matter, all expanding outward from the same genesis, existing independently across immense distances that turn even the simplest observations into time travel. The other is a localized collection of biological units, each dependent on the summed contributions of the whole, and even on the contributions of life beyond itself, in order to exist at all. As the cosmos does, it arises from a single genesis, but its growth and organization rely on an intensely intricate choreography of signals, relationships and cooperation across distances small enough that we don’t distinguish them from the body as a whole. One is built out small bits of the other, but the larger, in a way, does not exist except that it has been named by the smaller.
Zoom Info

staceythinx:

Astronomy by Taylor Allen is an “ongoing personal project exploring the human form and the organic nature of deep space formations”. 

Stunning work. Which do you think is more exquisitely built? The cosmos or the human form? 

One is a seemingly infinite collection of various condensations of matter, all expanding outward from the same genesis, existing independently across immense distances that turn even the simplest observations into time travel.

The other is a localized collection of biological units, each dependent on the summed contributions of the whole, and even on the contributions of life beyond itself, in order to exist at all. As the cosmos does, it arises from a single genesis, but its growth and organization rely on an intensely intricate choreography of signals, relationships and cooperation across distances small enough that we don’t distinguish them from the body as a whole.

One is built out small bits of the other, but the larger, in a way, does not exist except that it has been named by the smaller.

Tycho Rising The central peak of the Moon’s Tycho Crater, a complex crater whose mountain spire rises a massive two kilometers above the crater floor, as captured by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. You’ve probably seen this crater, it’s one of the Moon’s most visible.  Goes well with these digitally remastered shots from pre-Apollo Lunar Orbiters. (via APOD)
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Tycho Rising

The central peak of the Moon’s Tycho Crater, a complex crater whose mountain spire rises a massive two kilometers above the crater floor, as captured by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. You’ve probably seen this crater, it’s one of the Moon’s most visible. 

Goes well with these digitally remastered shots from pre-Apollo Lunar Orbiters.

(via APOD)

Source: apod.nasa.gov

Bad Astronomy Facts: A Year of Space Stuff Phil Plait gave the world something beautiful last year. The Bad Astronomy blogger posted a short astronomy fact to Twitter every day for the past year (tagged #BAFact). Here we are a year later, and with one for the leap year and an extra for today … the total is at 367 Twitter-sized factoids to make you a better science citizen. Enjoy the whole collection, archived at Bad Astronomy. Oh, and don’t expect to get anything done for the next couple hours. 
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Bad Astronomy Facts: A Year of Space Stuff

Phil Plait gave the world something beautiful last year. The Bad Astronomy blogger posted a short astronomy fact to Twitter every day for the past year (tagged #BAFact). Here we are a year later, and with one for the leap year and an extra for today … the total is at 367 Twitter-sized factoids to make you a better science citizen.

Enjoy the whole collection, archived at Bad Astronomy. Oh, and don’t expect to get anything done for the next couple hours.