Properly leading science articles

Posted on December 16, 2008 by Michael

Not long ago I wrote about misleading science articles, where it was claimed something in science was proved by a group of authors, one of which responded to the post (thank you, Christian Hoelbling). Now here’s a better article which is properly leading.

WASHINGTON – Mysterious dark energy, which likely causes the universe to keep expanding, seems to have another effect: It prevents the biggest clusters of galaxies from getting too fat. Astronomers used X-rays to study the formation of galactic clusters billions of years ago. Their research supports the hard-to-fathom concept of dark energy as a potent force that governs the growth of the universe.

It also means Albert Einstein’s century-old theory of general relativity passes another crucial, but not conclusive, real-world test.

Emphasis added.

Science is about disproving, not proving. By relativity “pass[ing] another crucial…test” it is meant that it was not falsified; it does not mean that anything was proven. The continued inability to falsify general relativity simply reinforces the theory.

Incidentally,

“[Dark energy] much more important and abundant in the evolution of the universe than the atoms that make us up,” said Princeton theoretical astrophysicist David Spergal.

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CO2 found on exo-planet

Posted on December 10, 2008 by Michael

I need to get back to some science. Fortunately, CO2 was recently detected on an exo-planet.

NASA said its Hubble Space Telescope has discovered carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of “hot Jupiter” planet HD 189733b, which orbits a nearby star 63 light-years from Earth.

The planet is itself too hot to support life — its surface is about 1,800 degrees F (1,000 degrees C).

But the astronomers said the observations are a proof-of-concept demonstration that the basic chemistry for life can be measured on planets orbiting other stars.

So the CO2 itself doesn’t mean anything particularly important, but it does lend credence to the idea that it is only a matter of time before astrobiology becomes an enormous field. How exciting would it be to finally confirm that we aren’t all alone, afterall? Granted, we may never make contact with any life we find, most obviously if it isn’t intelligent, but also simply because it may be so far away. This CO2, for example, was produced at 63 years ago. Assuming there was life that close (which would be almost as tremendous as the discovery of the life itself) – and it was intelligent – it would be 126 years before we could make two way contact; that’s 63 years for our (presumably) radiowaves to travel at the speed of light, reach the life-bearing planet, and then 63 years for a return message, provided the exo-life even gave a damn.

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Water may be more recent on Mars than previously thought

Posted on October 28, 2008 by Michael

For anyone wondering, it’s pretty conclusive that Mars once had water on it. Here we have a new sign that ancient Mars was wet more recently.

“This is an exciting discovery because it extends the time range for liquid water on Mars, and the places where it might have supported life,” said CRISM principal investigator Scott Murchie of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md. “The identification of opaline silica tells us that water may have existed as recently as 2 billion years ago.”

Notice that this extends the range of time that Mars is thought to have harbored liquid water – in other words, the point isn’t to show confirmation of water in the history of Mars. That’s been known for quite some time, despite public perceptions.

“What’s important is that the longer liquid water existed on Mars, the longer the window during which Mars may have supported life,” Milliken said. “The opaline silica deposits would be good places to explore to assess the potential for habitability on Mars, especially in these younger terrains.”

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