10 things you have heard and re-told

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Flamenca's picture
10 things you have heard and re-told

Do you think that some or each of these claims are true?

1. What goes up, must come down.

2. Sun is a yellow star.

3. Weightless astronauts left Earth's gravity.

4. The North Star is the brightest in the sky.

5. On a dark night you make out millions of stars.

6. Total solar eclypses are rare.

7. Days get long in the summer and short in the winter.

8. At high noon, the Sun is directly overhead.

9. Sun rises in the East and sets in the West.

10. Moon comes out only at night.

Neil deGrasse Tyson gives you the answer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOaaUHUnIz0

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Randomhero1982's picture
1 - In relation to gravity?

1 - In relation to gravity? Sure!
2 - Our sun is a yellow dwarf
3 - Yes I do believe people went into space
4 - No Polaris is not the brightest, Sirius A is.
5 - If your in the correct area with low levels of light pollution
6 - I would say they are predictable.. thanks to science.
7 - Depends upon the hemisphere you are in due to the tilt on the earth axis.
8 - It depends where you live in relation to the Earth’s rotation axis which is tilted 23.5 degrees with respect to its orbital motion around the Sun, one would have to be less than 23.5 degrees above or below the equator to have the Sun pass directly overhead.
9 - Yes because of the earth rotation in the relevant direction
10 - Nope it can be seen in the day

Pitar's picture
1. What goes up, must come

1. What goes up, must come down. (What's up?)

2. Sun is a yellow star. (Light is white. Earth's atmospheric gasses and airborne pollution color it)

3. Weightless astronauts left Earth's gravity. (Astronauts are not weightless within the pull of gravity)

4. The North Star is the brightest in the sky. (there are other heavenly bodies brighter than Polaris. One that kinda comes to mind immediately is our Sun)

5. On a dark night you make out millions of stars. (I think they meant gobs)

6. Total solar eclypses are rare. (Earth's perspective only. I wonder what the inhabitants of Jupiter experience)

7. Days get long in the summer and short in the winter. (Not according to my Timex)

8. At high noon, the Sun is directly overhead. (an old sundial timepiece throwback)

9. Sun rises in the East and sets in the West. (Infers the Sun revolves around the Earth. The opposite is true and together with the period of the Earth's rotation, we have the basis for debunking pagan religions. Nah, they're good fun for the entire family)

10. Moon comes out only at night. (Well, of course, we all know it's just another nocturnal varmint)

Nyarlathotep's picture
The problem with statement 1

The problem with statement 1 is that an object that goes "up" with enough velocity to travel infinitely far from the Earth, won't come back.

Randomhero1982's picture
Do you know I was having

Do you know I was having dinner and the question popped in my head... I don't know why I didn't think of that at the time but my first though was I bet someones already commented PMSL!!!
Very well done sir!

Also to Pitar... Sirius A is the brightest star if you disregard are sun, Polaris or the north star is roughly 46th brightest... I think even betelguese is brighter.

LogicFTW's picture
1: "must" is too strong a

1: "must" is too strong a word. Usually would fit better here.
2. It is fair to call it yellow, of the various sun types, organized by "color" types yellow, blue, red, orange, etc, ours would be described yellow.
3. Seems like a poorly constructed sentence. Jump up, on the way down, if you put a scale underneath your feet, it would register weightless for a split second. Of course soon as you land you will "weigh" more as it is mass times acceleration (gravity.) You can experience sustained "weightless" for a couple thousand bucks, as they have planes that climb up to 40,000 feet then go into free fall for 20,000 feet, at which time you will be weightless, and not have rushing air going around you, inside the plane, the weightless experience is very similar to what astronauts experience in space. Earths gravity field extends far out into space, it just get's weaker the further out you get.

4. Definitely not, it can be one of the brightest in certain places at certain times of the year, but the north star is famous because it does not "move" in our sky much.

5. Depends how you define what you are looking at, can you make a millions of individual stars? No. Even with low light pollution, certainly not with the naked eye. But you are seeing light sources from billions of stars, (looking at galaxies and if you count all the stars within them.)

6. They occur somewhere on earth roughly once every 18 months. More often if you include annular eclipses, (which are sort of total solar eclipses, just the moon is to far away, (small to us on land) that the surface of the moon cannot block out all the light, even if you are standing where the moon is dead center on the sun (you get a ring of fire instead, and must wear solar glasses the entire viewing.)

7. Sounds like a trick question, the amount of time day light will hit a particular area increases in the summer for the northern hemisphere, and decreases in the winter.

8. The "average" of a yearly cycle of the sun being overhead, high noon represents a very rough: the sun is most likely to be most directly overhead. If you live near a boarder of a time zone, this will be increasingly off. And obviously in the winter, especially the further north you go, the sun never makes it "fully" overhead. Earth's tilt and all that.

9. The concept of north, south, east and west, was based on sun patterns, the average of where they rise and set etc, long before the use of compasses and "magnetic north"

10. Just yesterday I saw the moon during the day.

Watched video, pretty much got all these right, just explained a bit different. (With a lot less humor anyways.)

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