Cosmic Howlers
July 2023
A NEW TOOL IN THE ASTROLOGER’S BAG, NO DOUBT!
Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff achieved a niche in astrological history when Clyde Tombaugh used its telescopes to discover the dwarf planet Pluto in 1930. (Highroads [a magazine of the American Astronomical Association], 2011, July/August, p31)
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The use of astrological in this context is, of course, incorrect – it should read astronomical.
It is also worth noting that back in 1930, Pluto was classified as a planet – classifying it as a dwarf planet didn’t happen until 2006.
The International Astronomical Union (IAU) says a planet must do three things:
- It must orbit a star (in our cosmic neighbourhood, the Sun).
- It must be big enough to have enough gravity to force it into a spherical shape.
- It must be big enough that its gravity cleared away any other objects of a similar size near its orbit around the star (in our case, the Sun).
The IAU therefore downgraded the status of Pluto to that of a dwarf planet because it meets all the criteria except one—it has not cleared its neighbouring region of other objects.
A MAN OF MANY TALENTS
…some measurement of double stars in the 1930s by Reverand [sic] R Woolley. (Astronomy Now, 2011, August, p20)
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Apart from the incorrect spelling of the word Reverand (which should be spelt Reverend), Woolley was not a a member of the clergy! The writer of the article (or maybe a computer spell-checker!) has mixed up Woolley’s full name, which is Richard van der Riet Woolley.
FISHING EXPEDITION
…we await the observations of NASA’s Juno mission with baited breath… (The Observatory, 2012, 132, p62)
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The word baited should, of course, be bated.
A WHALE-SIZED ERROR
Arp 147, a galaxy pair in the constellation of Cetus (the Whale), more than 400 light years away from Earth, is named after him (Daily Telegraph, 2014, January 27: Obituary of American astronomer Halton Arp)
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The galaxy pair known as Arp 147 is, in fact, more than 400 million light years away.
SHORT OF A FEW ZEROS
Nomad planets in the Milky Way may outnumber stars….Researchers…estimate there may be up to 100 000 such planets in the Milky Way alone… (Astronomy & Geophysics, 2012, 53,2.5)
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Our Milky Way galaxy contains at least 100 billion (ie 100,000 million) stars, so the estimated number of nomad planets must be correspondingly much larger than 100,000.