DBT
Contributor
Gah, typo, tiny phone screen, I don't know where the 'astronomists' came from.
It wouldn't though. You're proposing, equivalently, that the rock is casting a shadow in the star's light and we're in the shadow. But a rock can't be much bigger than Jupiter, or else it would be a star itself and we'd see it. That means its shadow is no more than about a hundred thousand miles wide. The Earth is moving around the sun at about 18 miles a second, so it will typically pop out of any shadow within an hour and a half. Even if the rock is coincidentally moving at the same speed and direction as the Earth, the Earth is in an orbit -- its direction becomes significantly different in a matter of days. The rock is in a completely different orbit so it can't track the Earth's changes in direction. Back of the envelope, it's impossible for us to stay in anything's shadow longer than a week....It depends on the angle of traversal and amount of travel. If the angle is as narrow as possible (i.e. the rock came from our moon and headed straight at the "now missing" star a million years ago), then the star will not be visible for many 100's of thousands of years while it is in the "sweet spot".
Maybe... how long have the stars gone "missing"? If only a day or a month... then I would totally expect this... NOT "missing" a star once in a while (and "hundreds" out of the trillions visible is quite the once in a rare while), I would find that quite odd. In my day to day experience, it is a rare occurrence that all things around me are not occluded by any other thing.
A very big rock, very far away from us, moving very slowly, should be expected to occlude a star or two for a year or so.. or century or so even..
It wouldn't though. You're proposing, equivalently, that the rock is casting a shadow in the star's light and we're in the shadow. But a rock can't be much bigger than Jupiter, or else it would be a star itself and we'd see it. That means its shadow is no more than about a hundred thousand miles wide. The Earth is moving around the sun at about 18 miles a second, so it will typically pop out of any shadow within an hour and a half. Even if the rock is coincidentally moving at the same speed and direction as the Earth, the Earth is in an orbit -- its direction becomes significantly different in a matter of days. The rock is in a completely different orbit so it can't track the Earth's changes in direction. Back of the envelope, it's impossible for us to stay in anything's shadow longer than a week....It depends on the angle of traversal and amount of travel. If the angle is as narrow as possible (i.e. the rock came from our moon and headed straight at the "now missing" star a million years ago), then the star will not be visible for many 100's of thousands of years while it is in the "sweet spot".
Maybe... how long have the stars gone "missing"? If only a day or a month... then I would totally expect this... NOT "missing" a star once in a while (and "hundreds" out of the trillions visible is quite the once in a rare while), I would find that quite odd. In my day to day experience, it is a rare occurrence that all things around me are not occluded by any other thing.
A very big rock, very far away from us, moving very slowly, should be expected to occlude a star or two for a year or so.. or century or so even..
...and we can let the astronomers (or astronomists ) do that type of thinking. If astronomers say 'we have no idea where a few hundred stars went', I'm thinking they have already gone through a long list of reasons why they aren't visible and some easy explanation isn't available.It wouldn't though. You're proposing, equivalently, that the rock is casting a shadow in the star's light and we're in the shadow. But a rock can't be much bigger than Jupiter, or else it would be a star itself and we'd see it. That means its shadow is no more than about a hundred thousand miles wide. The Earth is moving around the sun at about 18 miles a second, so it will typically pop out of any shadow within an hour and a half. Even if the rock is coincidentally moving at the same speed and direction as the Earth, the Earth is in an orbit -- its direction becomes significantly different in a matter of days. The rock is in a completely different orbit so it can't track the Earth's changes in direction. Back of the envelope, it's impossible for us to stay in anything's shadow longer than a week.
Ok, I get what you are saying... but parallax... the tiny "wobble" of Earth as it goes from one side of our star to the other, seems to me to be an insignificant change in perspective of something so very far away... I guess we could just do the trig and see how big an object would have to be to still be "in the way" of a point viewed from many light years away.
Well, the argument as written doesn't depend on any of that -- all that matters is that there's an upper limit on rock size, and the Earth's orbit is a lot bigger than any rock we're hypothesizing might be in the way. But what the argument does depend on is the assumption that the rock isn't any bigger than the light source it's blocking. That's of course the case for any normal star -- anything from a red dwarf to a red giant, and I assumed that was what was being blocked -- if the rock is "so very far away" then it can't block the star, any more than Venus can block the sun as viewed from Earth. All you get in that case is a transit, not an occultation.Ok, I get what you are saying... but parallax... the tiny "wobble" of Earth as it goes from one side of our star to the other, seems to me to be an insignificant change in perspective of something so very far away... I guess we could just do the trig and see how big an object would have to be to still be "in the way" of a point viewed from many light years away.
^^^ This ^^^. My first reaction when I saw the story was "In 1950 astronomy was done with photographic film. The missing stars never existed, just tiny manufacturing defects in the film.". But on second thought I figured the astronomers probably thought of that......and we can let the astronomers (or astronomists ) do that type of thinking. If astronomers say 'we have no idea where a few hundred stars went', I'm thinking they have already gone through a long list of reasons why they aren't visible and some easy explanation isn't available.
This article clarifies that the researchers identified the "missing stars" as being obstructed by "transient events". So.. basically exactly what I had been saying.
Small children learn object permanence at a young age (when they realize a hidden thing has not ceased to exist). The pop science article must have been written by kids that still find a game of peek-a-boo fascinating entertainment.
Is it illegal to falsely report missing stars? Think of all the wasted resources and money spent looking for them.
Is it illegal to falsely report missing stars? Think of all the wasted resources and money spent looking for them.
Alarmist blog post about poorly understood and poorly researched article about competent and reserved published paper.Is it illegal to falsely report missing stars? Think of all the wasted resources and money spent looking for them.
Well, it's a learning opportunity, at least... unless, of course, we just resign ourselves to always appeal to authority.. "someone else prolly thought of that... I'm going back to bed".
sometimes, people think of things, and then fail to report those things because it sells better to make the situation more mysterious sounding.