I sort of love that these new findings are still largely from human eyeballs.
Hubble sees possible runaway black hole creating a trail of stars
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Re: Hubble sees possible runaway black hole creating a trail of stars
#12Imagine intelligent life arising on a planet around one of those stars. I wonder how long it would take their astronomers to figure out where they were.
Re: Hubble sees possible runaway black hole creating a trail of stars
#13Link to actual paper with actual images: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/acba86
I get incredibly frustrated with popular science articles that use only artist’s impressions and avoid the real images. To me, the real images are much more exciting. You don’t need fake clarity and fake colour when you’re seeing a (candidate) high speed black hole sucking the life out of some fricking ginormous balls of flaming nuclear fusion.
The figures in the primary literature are great for scientists and reasonably educated adults, but they're trying to capture the imaginations of children and those not so scientifically literate.
It's understandable. If you show the actual figures to a layman, many of them would respond in disbelief or disappointment. You have to build a bridge, and that begins with illustration. It's a communication and education tool.
Re: Hubble sees possible runaway black hole creating a trail of stars
#14Imagine intelligent life arising on a planet around one of those stars. I wonder how long it would take their astronomers to figure out where they were.
Basically three body problem
Re: Hubble sees possible runaway black hole creating a trail of stars
#15Link to actual paper with actual images: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/acba86
And the NASA press release: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2023/hubble-sees-possib... Not sure what the deal is with this hubblesite.org… Edit: Ah ok, interesting… It’s entirely legit. The “about us” page says the website is produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute ( https://www.stsci.edu ).
Yeah, STScI is very legitimate (I work there as an astronomer) and it has an excellent Office of Public Outreach team.
The graphic does specify that it is an illustration, but I agree that it could explicitly mention that it's an artist's rendition of the (authors' physical interpretation) of the astronomical observations.
Re: Hubble sees possible runaway black hole creating a trail of stars
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
I get incredibly frustrated with popular science articles that use only artist’s impressions and avoid the real images. To me, the real images are much more exciting. You don’t need fake clarity and fake colour when you’re seeing a (candidate) high speed black hole sucking the life out of some fricking ginormous balls of flaming nuclear fusion.
The figures in the primary literature are great for scientists and reasonably educated adults, but they're trying to capture the imaginations of children and those not so scientifically literate. It's understandable. If you show the actual figures to a layman, many of them would respond in disbelief or disappointment. You have to build a bridge, and that begins with illustration. It's a communication and education to…
Then use both. Many science 'educators' do a terrible job of dumbing things down so much that kids who want to pursue their interest farther get filtered when they hit the scholarly literature unless they are lucky enough to have imaginative teachers.
Re: Hubble sees possible runaway black hole creating a trail of stars
#17[flagged]
Re: Hubble sees possible runaway black hole creating a trail of stars
#18Imagine intelligent life arising on a planet around one of those stars. I wonder how long it would take their astronomers to figure out where they were.
If there is intelligent life, isnt it likely that there will be similarity in the stars and planets. And those folk have a galactic superhighway!
Re: Hubble sees possible runaway black hole creating a trail of stars
#19That picture is amazing! The real ones at the very bottom of the article were OK too I guess.
Re: Hubble sees possible runaway black hole creating a trail of stars
#20If you lived on a planet going around one of those stars it sure would be hard to make sense of the universe.
"Oh I have it! In addition to all the incomprehensible things in the universe, we happen to live in a star system that is extremely, extremely rare and exeptional, unlike the rest of the universe!"