New Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON)

RacerX said:
Why do you say that? I mean can all those scientists and physicists they are interviewing on the particular program I watched be wrong? I mean I am sure they can but these are creditable people that work in the field. I would like to know what leads you to that conculsion.
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Granted it's not as bad as the History Channel, but yes, one problem is TV-scientists who either demonstrate bad science or severly dumb down science for the audience. Narration and editting make it a big step worse by taking things out of context. Check History Channel for the possible future of Science Channel: ancient aliens, zombies, nibiru, mayan apocalypse, etc. It is not hard to find someone who is willing to be called an "expert" in psuedoscience.
This should probably be made into another thread though, if anyone wants in on the discussion.

Edit/add: Even brilliant scientists such as Hawking have their work butchered into sci-fi. Or at least, the Science Channel doesn't adaquately distinguish between science and sci-fi and misleads many viewers.
 
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Yes, they tend to dramatize everything they air.
In fact there are very few documentaries that does not make them guilty of it.
That can be sometimes very irritating.
Like Nick stated, they are taking the facts out of context.
But maybe I'm posting a "off topic comment here.":facepalm:
 
RacerX said:
Why do you say that? I mean can all those scientists and physicists they are interviewing on the particular program I watched be wrong? I mean I am sure they can but these are creditable people that work in the field. I would like to know what leads you to that conculsion.
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Both Science and History channel tend to go out of their way to find the most crazy ideas on the internet, then try to find people with a diploma to make it sound as if those ideas have merit.

They make it sound as if anything is possible, from aliens to cold fusion.
 
Massive comet will shine brighter than the moon

http://www.sciencerecorder.com/news/massive-comet-will-shine-brighter-than-the-moon-say-astronomers/

A massive two-mile-wide comet will be visible from Earth in late 2013, possibly appearing brighter than the moon during November and December, according to astronomers.
...
If the comet survives its brush with the sun, it is expected to put on an amazing show for amateur astronomers. The comet could be the brightest to appear in Earth’s skies since 1965 and could even be visible in daylight. Current predictions note the object’s magnitude could jumped above 16 — making it far brighter than the full Moon. According to various astronomers, the best sightings will be in the Northern Hemisphere, although the comet will be visible across the globe.
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Who else is super-excited? :D
 
Current predictions note the object’s magnitude could jumped above 16 — making it far brighter than the full Moon.
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First of all that is terrible grammar from what is supposed to be a proof-read article.

Secondly, the full moons magnitude is -12.74 - magnitude 16 is way past the human eyes detection threshold so I suspect that they mean -16. The science of this story is very poor and so I'll wait for further verification before getting any level of excited about this story.
 
I'm not holding my breath just yet. McNaught was absolutely awesome though.
 
+/- 5% margin of error on both points?
 
asbjos said:
Where did the last 10 % go?
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The 60% of "it being wrong" simply isn't the remaining part of the 30% of "it being awesome".
It's rather 30% chance of being awesome and 70% chance of not being awesome, and 60% chance that the 30% awesomeness ratio is wrong, or 40% chance that the 30% awesomeness ratio being right. :P
 
asbjos said:
Where did the last 10 % go?
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I assume they didn't want to say 33.333...% chance of awesome, 66.666...% chance of that being wrong, and hoped no one would notice the difference.

LaTeX is still broken, rawr...
 
I dislike comets, bad things happen when they swing'round.
 
Massive comet will shine brighter than the moon
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Riiiiight. And Mars will appear in the sky bigger than the moon. And the apocalypse will come. And the seas will turn to peanut butter...ok I made that last one up myself....
 
Izack said:
Somewhat less amusing than the time the seas turned to Fluff.
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The incredibly ironic thing is that any ships in the ocean or submarines beneath would have their propellers, well, jammed, with peanut butter...
 
Oh great, another "outshine the moon" story.
 
Spacethingy said:
Aw, I'd love another nice big comet. Although magnitude 16 would be... rather dim... I was pretty young when I remember Hale "Bob" shining at night. I like having another big thing in the night sky, it feels kinda Star Wars-ish. :lol:
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Science :)
 
Spacethingy said:
Aw, I'd love another nice big comet. Although magnitude 16 would be... rather dim... I was pretty young when I remember Hale "Bob" shining at night. I like having another big thing in the night sky, it feels kinda Star Wars-ish. :lol:
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Don't you mean Comet Hale-Bopp of 1997?
 
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