Monday, November 15, 2010

Bad Astronomy Post

Watching the movie I said that when the astronaut was blinded by the sun it was factual. After looking it up on the Bad Astronomy website I learned that Phil Plait disaggred with me becasue although he didn't know how close the comet actually was to the sun, he said that NASA would have given them built in visors or built in a UV block to their visors. They did have sun visors the astonaut was just in panic so he couldn't get it over his face in time therefore I disagree wiht Phil. Phil also believes that it is wrong that the sun blinded him becasuse he was only loooking at it for a few seconds but I think it easily would have blinded him considering they seemed to be very close to the sun and he is looking directly into the sun. Also while watching the movie I believed that the comet would have caused a huge wave of water when it landed in the ocean. Phil agreed with me that it would have caused a big wave but he disagrees that the water would have compleatly receded from the beach to be drawn up into the wave. Also the water would have been traveling faster than sound so we wouldn't have heard the huge wave.
I believed that it was wrong for the commet to be making any sound and Phil agreed with me that you have to have a medium for sound to occur and space is a vacum, therefore there would be no sound.
Lastly while watching the movie I believed it was false that the commet weighed 500 billion tons and Phil agrred with me. He says that the commet woul have actually weighed about 1,000 trillion tons!

Misconceptions:
Bad Moon Rising - Can you see the moon during the day?
During the day I have seen the moon before and I'm not sure why. It is usually in the morning but I have seen it before during the summer when I was at the beach...weird. My only explanation is that it could be a reflection but I honestly have no idea.
Okay so after reading I was wrong. The moon is always up during the day you just have to know where to look to find it. Apparently the few times I seen it I must have been lucky enough to figure out where it was that day.
The sky at Night - Do all starts look white?
Again I know nothing about space but when I look up at the stars they all seem white to me. It wouldn't surprise me though if they are different colors you just can't see them with a naked eye.
After reading I learned that all stars emit all of the colors of the rainbow. He says the best way to find out is to look at the stars in the summertime and look directly above at the brightest stars (Vega and Antares) which will clearly be blue and red orange.
A Step Farther Out - What's your sigh? Astrology and the zodiac.
I know that my sign is Sagittarius because my birthday is in December. There are also 11 other sign for the other months. Also I know that there is a constellation named Sagittarius that I'm guessing is directly overhead in December.
After reading I learned that there are more than just 12 constellations. There are actually between 13 and 24!

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