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I have no clue what this thread is about anymore (No 2012 Star Wars suns)
NotASenator
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Listen.
Every once in a while, CNN ("The Most Trusted Name in News") or that ridiculous monument erected to incorrect bullshit that is the Huffington Post will see an article posted on a news website in Australia and run a front page story viewed by millions of people about how the world is going to end.
Today, that story is Betelgeuse.
Here's the facts:
- Betelgeuse is fucking huge. It is bigger than Jupiter's orbit.
- It is somewhere around 600 light years away from us. For those who don't know how light works, that means light emitted from Betelgeuse takes 600 years to reach us.
- Being a red supergiant star, Betelgeuse will eventually explode in a supernova.
- When this happens, we will find out about it 600 years later.
- This supernova explosion may have happened already and may not happen until long after everyone on this forum is dead.
- When it happens, and the light reaches us, it will look very very bright in the sky, but at 600 light years away, that light will have no effect on the planet except to make it a bit brighter for a few weeks. A supernova that far away is way too far to cause any damage to us here, by about 575 light years.
We've known that Betelgeuse is going to go for a long time, because that's what red supergiants do. This isn't new news.
So of course, when Claire Connelly of news.com.au decided to write about a scientist who was talking about some indications that Betelgeuse might be shrinking, she did the responsible journalistic thing:
She turned it into a story about 2012.
In the "I'm too stupid to read the whole story" bullets at the top of the page, she included:
and then at various points during the story:
While she certainly covered Dr. Carter's comments about how it won't actually harm us, the link to 2012 was blatant and stuck in plain view enough to try to generate more hits.
So what happens when Huff Post picks it up with their always rational and scientific journalism?
The rewrite the article with the headline: "Two Suns? Twin Stars Could Be Visible From Earth By 2012"
Yes. It could happen in 15 minutes or in a million years. But the Huffington Post does nothing else better than fucking up science for the purpose of fear-mongering, so there it is. How do they phrase what Carter said about when it might happen?
And what did he actually say in the article about 2012?
Wait, no - he didn't mention the time frame at all in any direct quote. However, the article writes:
Nice misquote.
Then, Time picks it up on their website, with the headline
wait for it:
Will the Earth Have Two Suns by 2012?
Which is then slapped on the front page of CNN.com
Crunchgear does even worse with their coverage:
Here's the deal. It may have already exploded, it might not explode for a long time. No one with any astrophysics background in any article about Betelgeuse exploding has predicted, indicated or mentioned 2012. The likelihood of the supernova having happened far enough in the past so that the light and neutrinos reach us next year is incredibly tiny.
When it does, nothing will happen except that there will be a bright spot for a while. At the distance away that Betelgeuse is, it will not look like a second Sun and give us weeks without night. You'd think the whole rotating Earth thing would knock that concept down pretty fast.
Here's to irresponsible journalism:
http://www.uberreview.com/2008/09/indian-teen-commits-suicide-over-lhc-fears.htm
Every once in a while, CNN ("The Most Trusted Name in News") or that ridiculous monument erected to incorrect bullshit that is the Huffington Post will see an article posted on a news website in Australia and run a front page story viewed by millions of people about how the world is going to end.
Today, that story is Betelgeuse.
Here's the facts:
- Betelgeuse is fucking huge. It is bigger than Jupiter's orbit.
- It is somewhere around 600 light years away from us. For those who don't know how light works, that means light emitted from Betelgeuse takes 600 years to reach us.
- Being a red supergiant star, Betelgeuse will eventually explode in a supernova.
- When this happens, we will find out about it 600 years later.
- This supernova explosion may have happened already and may not happen until long after everyone on this forum is dead.
- When it happens, and the light reaches us, it will look very very bright in the sky, but at 600 light years away, that light will have no effect on the planet except to make it a bit brighter for a few weeks. A supernova that far away is way too far to cause any damage to us here, by about 575 light years.
We've known that Betelgeuse is going to go for a long time, because that's what red supergiants do. This isn't new news.
So of course, when Claire Connelly of news.com.au decided to write about a scientist who was talking about some indications that Betelgeuse might be shrinking, she did the responsible journalistic thing:
She turned it into a story about 2012.
In the "I'm too stupid to read the whole story" bullets at the top of the page, she included:
- May be set for 2012 appearance
and then at various points during the story:
Yes, any day now we see a second sun light up the sky, if only for a matter of weeks.
The infamous red super-giant star in Orion’s nebula - Betelgeuse - is predicted to go gangbusters and the impending super-nova may reach Earth before 2012, and when it does, all of our wildest Star Wars dreams will come true.
The interwebs is being flooded with doomsday theories saying the impending supernova confirms the Mayan calendar’s prediction of the Armageddon in 2012.
These conspiracies aren’t helped by the word “Betelgeuse” being associated with the devil.
Though it is a derivation of the Arabic phrase “yad Al Jauza” meaning the “hand of Al-Jauza” referring to a mysterious woman that controls the order of the universe, it hasn’t stopped some people from clearing out their bunkers and stocking up on tinned food.
While she certainly covered Dr. Carter's comments about how it won't actually harm us, the link to 2012 was blatant and stuck in plain view enough to try to generate more hits.
So what happens when Huff Post picks it up with their always rational and scientific journalism?
The rewrite the article with the headline: "Two Suns? Twin Stars Could Be Visible From Earth By 2012"
Yes. It could happen in 15 minutes or in a million years. But the Huffington Post does nothing else better than fucking up science for the purpose of fear-mongering, so there it is. How do they phrase what Carter said about when it might happen?
The Star Wars-esque scenario could happen by 2012, Carter says... or it could take longer.
And what did he actually say in the article about 2012?
Wait, no - he didn't mention the time frame at all in any direct quote. However, the article writes:
The bad news is, it could also happen in a million years. But who's counting?
Nice misquote.
Then, Time picks it up on their website, with the headline
wait for it:
Will the Earth Have Two Suns by 2012?
Which is then slapped on the front page of CNN.com
Crunchgear does even worse with their coverage:
Well look that: we may have another “sun” soon. That would be swell, and certainly the greatest thing to happen to sunglasses manufacturers. A scientist in Australia says that Betelgeuse, which is something like 640 light years away, appears to be losing mass at a fairly rapid rate. If that happens the star could go supernova, which would produce such a blindingly bright, uh, image, that it would be as visible in our sky as a second sun. Wild.
The prediction is that all of this would go down in 2012.
That, of course, means that this actually happened 640 years ago, more than 100 years before Columbus sailed the Ocean Blue.
I don’t know, I thought it was neat. It also reminded me of Sephiroth, which is always appreciated.
Here's the deal. It may have already exploded, it might not explode for a long time. No one with any astrophysics background in any article about Betelgeuse exploding has predicted, indicated or mentioned 2012. The likelihood of the supernova having happened far enough in the past so that the light and neutrinos reach us next year is incredibly tiny.
When it does, nothing will happen except that there will be a bright spot for a while. At the distance away that Betelgeuse is, it will not look like a second Sun and give us weeks without night. You'd think the whole rotating Earth thing would knock that concept down pretty fast.
Here's to irresponsible journalism:
http://www.uberreview.com/2008/09/indian-teen-commits-suicide-over-lhc-fears.htm
NotASenator on
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This discussion has been closed.
Posts
Dear satan I wish for this or maybe some of this....oh and I'm a medium or a large.
3DS: 2981-5304-3227
what does this have to do with having 2 suns?
I didn't have enough tiiiiiiiiime.
We become Tatooine, and then I become a jedi.
3DS: 2981-5304-3227
two suns
one for the sith
one for the jedi
the battle begins anew in theaters near you
if it makes you feel any better, this is the first i've heard of this
much like the zodiac thing
and i will find it
I think the later
Then I read things like this and realize that far to many people are simply bags of meat that take up resources.
Secret Satan 2013 Wishlist
short answer?
no
long answer?
people are fucking idiots
http://www.2012hoax.org
I had to post and run, here are the sources for the OP:
Original story - http://www.news.com.au/technology/sci-tech/tatooines-twin-suns-coming-to-a-planet-near-you-just-as-soon-as-betelgeuse-explodes/story-fn5fsgyc-1225991009247
Huff Post - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/20/two-suns-twin-stars_n_811864.html
Time - http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/01/21/will-the-earth-have-two-suns-by-2012/?hpt=T2
Crunchgear - http://www.crunchgear.com/2011/01/21/will-planet-earth-have-two-suns-by-2012/
And here is Phil Plait dismantling the claim:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/01/21/betelgeuse-and-2012/
And Ian O'Neill
http://news.discovery.com/space/dont-panic-betelgeuse-wont-explode-in-2012.html
all my star wars dreams
like that time I dreamed I went to the Addams Family home and I met Cousin It only it was really R2D2 under all that hair and then he showed me where they kept a stash of King Size candy bars? I was like ten at the time, for the record.
Does that qualify as a Star Wars dream?
how many people will get this, I wonder
Everything involving 2012 is about people trying to get rich off of it.
The original bullshit was in a New Age book back in the 70s I think, and since then it's just been people trying to profit off of it.
I obviously will.
Productive bags of meat. They exist to serve the conscious minority.
No.
Also hunter, unfortunately we've gotten to a point in our society where a large portion of the populace can afford to be completely ignorant to the science that we depend on every day for life and comfort.
This second sun nonsense is ridiculous, though. It would be far far dimmer than even the full moon.
Also, as was already mentioned, the time period for this event is sometime between 599 years ago to tens of thousands of years from now, so the odds of it being the required 599 years ago are pretty monumentally slim.
Still, I hope they are right about the timing of Betelguese going supernova, actually, I hope it happened like 594 years ago, so I can study it as a graduate student in Astrophysics.
3DS: 2981-5304-3227
I would be disappointed if you didn't
is going to be exploding ANY DAY NOW
Now now, to be fair, I'm sure some of them are farmers or something, growing food for the thinkers to buy and eat.
We can't all be neurons. Some of us have gotta be red blood cells, or smooth muscle tissue.
your = belonging to you
their = belonging to them
there = not here
they're = they are
my favorite example of this is the defense of orestes in the oresteia
"yeah we know that he killed his mom and that usually means the furies get to tear you apart, but see the mom is just the receptacle for the dad's seed and doesn't actually contribute anything to the kid, so it's the same as killing a stranger practically"
Steam
really want to be able to migrate to a lunar or asteroid colony and leave this world to fester in it's own ignorance.
"Think of it as Evolution in Action"