How can they possibly be sure that it is oxygen doing that?
Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy
81–90 of 189 posts
Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy
#82Off topic: - Is the big bang theory the scientific consensus on the origin and evolution of the universe ? - What are the alternatives ?
Big Flash.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSSDi22NVFo
As if matter existed and then there was a creation of light at some moment. Red shift is explained by interaction of light with gravitational field - the more distant source of light, the longer it travels under the influence of gravity and the more red it becomes.
Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy
#83Off topic: - Is the big bang theory the scientific consensus on the origin and evolution of the universe ? - What are the alternatives ?
Big bang theory really a term describing the moment the universe started and not the evolution and how things evolved with time which have more questions than answer. The standard model of cosmology is the most accepted theory about universe. But you can't have knowledge about anything before the singularity. Actually we don't even know for sure what happens in the seconds after that because we need a much more power…
Add to it we need much more reliable ways to detect super weak neutrinos. If we had that ability we could see into the first seconds of the universe whereas the universe was dark to light for hundreds of thousands of years.
Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy
#84I’m always a bit skeptical about these sorts of things. Perhaps I’m just ignorant about the methods used.. but the amount of data we can get from the most distant known galaxy can’t be very much. How confident can we be that the shift in observed light or whatever is actually from the presence of Oxygen and not one of probably countless other causes, both known and unknown.
Skepticism is fair, but the confidence comes from how well we understand atomic spectra
Is that about as well as we understand the formation of the universe? /s
Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy
#85I'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.
Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy
#86Note the theory in this release is the oxygen is from a mature star releasing heavier elements, not plant life. I thought oxygen detection was extremely difficult, they must have better methods now. adding: https://news.arizona.edu/news/how-next-gen-telescopes-could-...
Oxygen detection in space isn't hard, the article in question seems to be an attempt at detecting oxygen on an exoplanet which is massively hard.
Now, conversely, oxygen detection in galaxies/around stars is difficult for another reason. It doesn't want to remain free oxygen and will gladly bind with any other atoms/molecules it runs into.
https://now.northropgrumman.com/what-happens-to-oxygen-in-sp...
Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy
#87I'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.
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Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy
#88I'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.
I second this, and it tends to be a sitewide issue. HN has really changed over the past 5+ years: went from healthy or interesting skepticism to reddit-style snarkiness and shitposting.
Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy
#89I’m always a bit skeptical about these sorts of things. Perhaps I’m just ignorant about the methods used.. but the amount of data we can get from the most distant known galaxy can’t be very much. How confident can we be that the shift in observed light or whatever is actually from the presence of Oxygen and not one of probably countless other causes, both known and unknown.
There are a lot of very smart people working in astronomy, they review each other’s work, and they compete for jobs and funding. Does it really seem likely that none of them have thought to validate basic assumptions?
Having family members who do that for a living, I can tell you that’s a huge chunk of the job. Astronomers all know that they have significant limitations in the data that they can collect and spend a lot of time thinking about ways they can test different theories. It would be a career-making move if some grad student could come up with a new explanation which changes the previous understanding and given the ratio of degrees granted to jobs the incentives really wouldn’t favor covering anything up.
Re: Oxygen atoms discovered in most distant known galaxy
#90I'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.
I second this, and it tends to be a sitewide issue. HN has really changed over the past 5+ years: went from healthy or interesting skepticism to reddit-style snarkiness and shitposting.
There’s always been some of that but it does feel like it’s getting worse. I think there’s a general shift in how people approach Skinner-ized apps and social media, where a couple of generations have been trained to prioritize a number going up, but also something about how politics became both post-factual and unavoidable even in communities which used to avoid it, all of which has driven a lot of former contributors away.
I’m not sure how to rebalance things - and certainly won’t claim to be perfect about not taking the bait myself – but it seems to be slowly starving a lot of communities which don’t have some in-person anchoring.