Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy

eso.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–189 of 189 posts

Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy

#181

Post by addaon »

borgdefenser wrote: post #114
lordnacho wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think I've ever been on a forum that doesn't have comments to that effect regularly. "It was better a few years ago, it's all going to hell now, we're becoming Reddit/4Chan/Slashdot" It's the internet forum version of "the youth has gotten lazy, it weren't like this when I were a lad"

I was on usenet in 1995 but I have heard that was too late and usenet already sucked then. In all fairness too, my 17 year old self who knew basically nothing about the world ,really did add absolutely nothing of value to the usenet discussions I participated in besides noise. Of course, at the time I thought the complete opposite. The thing that amuses me most is at the time there would have been a lot of "pro commu…

> In all fairness too, my 17 year old self who knew basically nothing about the world ,really did add absolutely nothing of value to the usenet discussions I participated in besides noise. Of course, at the time I thought the complete opposite.

Me too!

Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy

#182

Post by MattPalmer1086 »

nimish wrote: post #141
MattPalmer1086 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are confusing academia with science. A lot of science is done in academia, but a lot is also done in the commercial sector. Obviously the commercial sector won't typically fund things unless there is some probable payback, so they are not so good at doing fundamental research. You need both to get the best returns.

I'm explicitly not. And you have no idea how much fundamental research happens in the commercial sector because there's no incentive to publish it -- why would I publish the trade secrets for you to exploit? For the record, work I've done under NDA would easily disprove a number of academic theories right now but there's no way I could get the companies to allow me to publish it (nor would I want to tank their stock)…

I did say a lot of research is done commercially.

Academia will do non commercial research though, because they are motivated by prestige, not money.

I think we are violently agreeing!

Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy

#183

Post by gitaarik »

e40 wrote: post #179
gitaarik wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Off topic: > > - Is the big bang theory the scientific consensus on the origin and evolution of the universe ? Yes, because this theory currently best describes our observations, but there are still many anomalies. Like dark matter / energy / quantum physics / axis of evil. > - What are the alternatives ? The big crunch, where the universe ultimately shrinks again. You also have a theory that it expands and shrinks…

Axis of evil?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axis_of_evil_(cosmology)

Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy

#184

Post by PaulHoule »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #92
PaulHoule wrote: post #2

It fits the theme that, according to Webb, the universe developed a lot more quickly in what we think were the first billion years... Most likely the "first billion years" were more like five billion years.

I don't know if there was just a crap ton of blue hypergiant stars in the early universe that crank through the fusion ladder in a couple million years, it wouldn't surprise me.

There are the chemistry problems but the big one is "how did supermassive black holes get so big?" Webb is finding what seem to be huge black holes way back but the black hole problem has been around for at least 25 years if not more.

Supernovae can create black holes in the 10's of solar mass range and they can merge but it would take a long time for those to find each other to merge to the 60 billion solar mass range. You might have processes that make 10^5 solar mass black holes but it would still take a lot of time for those to find each other and merge to make supermassive black holes.

Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy

#185

Post by UI_at_80x24 »

ender7 wrote: post #160
alex_young wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Water oceans? It’s far far from 30% isn’t it? Is there an image of a single water ocean not on Earth?

Due to some counterintuitive geothermal reasons, it's likely that three of the four Galilean moons (of Jupiter) as well as Titan (Saturn's largest moon) all sport significant underground oceans of liquid water. For example, despite being much smaller than the Earth, Ganymede is projected to harbor more liquid water than all of Earth's oceans combined. (Whether this adds up to 30% depends heavily on what you start cou…

I did not do the math at all correct. (I'm on vacation and apparently left most of my brain cells at home.)

I stupidly counted:

9 planets total

2 "ocean" moons (Enceladus + Europa) + Earth = 3 bodies with water. 9 divided by 3 = 30%

So that is my half thinking.

Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy

#186

Post by hadlock »

gentle wrote: post #85

I'm always fascinated by the posters here who insist on second-guessing the writers and the scientists who spend their whole lives studying a topic like this. No one needs to read your post fessing up to your profound ignorance and the fact that you didn't really read the link.

The acronym RTFA is probably older than the mean age of the posters here, for a reason

Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy

#187

Post by lz400 »

gosub100 wrote: post #176
lz400 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a real problem but your post is an exaggeration. There are cases of fraud in science. There is a reproducibility crisis in some areas. There are political angles and rent seeking wrt grants. But how widespread is it? You're assuming it's close to 100% without evidence. I don't claim to have the exact number but intuitively yours is extraordinary (so it would need extraordinary evidence). I think these…

I'm not assuming it's close to 100%, I'm countering the GPs criticism of people who are skeptical about the title. He's saying "how dare you question these science experts!?!" And I'm saying the reason people do that is because scandals like LK99 erode the credibility.

I think on average trusting the experts is the right thing. And by the way LK99 is not even particularly damning, as far as we know it was science working as intended

Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy

#189

Post by interludead »

lab14 wrote: post #93
interludead wrote: post #67

Finding oxygen in a galaxy this young is pretty wild

Why?

Because oxygen is formed in stars and then dispersed when they die (like in supernovae), so finding it in such a young galaxy means that at least one generation of massive stars had already formed and died
Post reply on HN