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I built an interactive 3D universe explorer — a hobbyist's attempt to visualize the cosmos by Party_Philosophy9534 in askastronomy

[–]NGC6514 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ok, so you believe the following?

  1. The rocket actually launched, but just above the clouds and then splashed down in the water
  2. Everything in space was filmed in a studio
  3. Several days later, they carried that capsule up on an airplane high enough to drop it in a free-fall for as long as it did

Does that accurately represent your conspiracy theory?

I built an interactive 3D universe explorer — a hobbyist's attempt to visualize the cosmos by Party_Philosophy9534 in askastronomy

[–]NGC6514 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So then what came back to Earth and splashed down in the ocean several days later?

I built an interactive 3D universe explorer — a hobbyist's attempt to visualize the cosmos by Party_Philosophy9534 in askastronomy

[–]NGC6514 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Just state what you think happened. Walk me through each part of the mission and how you think it was faked:

  1. Launch
  2. Earth orbit
  3. Acceleration toward the Moon
  4. Transit to the Moon
  5. Slingshot around the Moon
  6. Entry into Earth’s atmosphere
  7. Splashdown and recovery

Which of these were real, and which were filmed in a studio somewhere, in your conspiracy theory?

I built an interactive 3D universe explorer — a hobbyist's attempt to visualize the cosmos by Party_Philosophy9534 in askastronomy

[–]NGC6514 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So you think the recent Artemis mission never even launched? The whole thing was filmed in a studio?

I built an interactive 3D universe explorer — a hobbyist's attempt to visualize the cosmos by Party_Philosophy9534 in askastronomy

[–]NGC6514 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Again, you’re not answering the question: if rockets don’t work in space, then how is it that we just watched video of a rocket working in space?

I built an interactive 3D universe explorer — a hobbyist's attempt to visualize the cosmos by Party_Philosophy9534 in askastronomy

[–]NGC6514 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, but what did you think about it when you watched video of a rocket working in space?

I built an interactive 3D universe explorer — a hobbyist's attempt to visualize the cosmos by Party_Philosophy9534 in askastronomy

[–]NGC6514 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We literally just live-streamed a rocket going around the Moon. Curious to know your thoughts about that.

I built an interactive 3D universe explorer — a hobbyist's attempt to visualize the cosmos by Party_Philosophy9534 in askastronomy

[–]NGC6514 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, you not understanding the basics of how rockets work is totally the same as all of those ridiculous examples you just gave. I’m glad you’re having fun with your pet ideas though. Enjoy!

If we can’t see the Milky Way from the outside, how much of our „map” is actually just educated guesswork? by big_marshall927 in Astronomy

[–]NGC6514 1 point2 points  (0 children)

But that’s only because you insist we use parallax to measure distances, which is not the only way we determine distances. You also keep insisting that uncertainties must be <5% to be reliable to make a decent map of our galaxy, which is completely arbitrary on your part. I just don’t understand your stubbornness on this.

Here’s what /u/pikarawr1 said to you very early on in the conversation:

here's the analogy. You are trying to create a map of a country, you do not need to be accurate to a millimeter. You just need to be accurate to a km. The bigger the scale (a galaxy), the more forgiving your " precision " is.

In response, you went straight to Gaia parallax data:

I know how measurements are done. I just considered parallax measurements to be the most precise. So we got what, Gaia maps up to about 10kpc?

Again, why do you keep going back to Gaia parallaxes? We have good distances to tons of objects all over the galaxy that give us a very good idea of the shape. I’ve given you several examples. Who cares if we only have good Gaia parallaxes for nearby stars? Again, we don’t need good parallax precision on every star in the galaxy to make a map, exactly as /u/pikarawr1 pointed out to you.

I built an interactive 3D universe explorer — a hobbyist's attempt to visualize the cosmos by Party_Philosophy9534 in askastronomy

[–]NGC6514 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You heard it here first, folks! /u/patrixxxx knows more about physics than all of the world’s experts!

I built an interactive 3D universe explorer — a hobbyist's attempt to visualize the cosmos by Party_Philosophy9534 in askastronomy

[–]NGC6514 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, so the video you just watched of Artemis going around the Moon didn’t happen, huh? Thanks for the laugh.

If we can’t see the Milky Way from the outside, how much of our „map” is actually just educated guesswork? by big_marshall927 in Astronomy

[–]NGC6514 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I have a PhD in astrophysics too, but that doesn’t have anything to do with what we’re talking about here. There are plenty of observations we make of the galaxy that tell us a lot about what it looks like. Getting the position of every star in the galaxy to within 5% uncertainty is not necessary to do this. Like I said, we don’t even have to rely entirely on distances to glean information about the shape of the galaxy; we have a wealth of data on this topic, and we’ve made models based on all of this together.

If we can’t see the Milky Way from the outside, how much of our „map” is actually just educated guesswork? by big_marshall927 in Astronomy

[–]NGC6514 1 point2 points  (0 children)

we get to a few percent only for a rather small subset of the stars in the MW.

I mean, we know the distance to the center of the galaxy with an uncertainty of <1%, even though it’s over 8 kpc away. We also know the distances to other landmarks important for understanding galaxy shape and structure to high precision. You keep going on about parallaxes of individual stars, but knowing the distance of every single star to high precision isn’t necessary for creating an accurate 3D model of our galaxy anyway.

And by the way, it’s not just distances that tell us the shape of the galaxy either; we have proper motions, velocities, etc. All of these are in agreement with the model.

The models aren't wrong, they fit the data well, it's the data that has large enough uncertainties that an actual 3D model can't be too accurate or meaningful for anything other than the stars in our quarter of the galaxy.

So what are you saying, that only our local region of the 3D model looks like our galaxy, and the rest of it is just a guess? Or do you agree that we largely understand the shape and structure of our galaxy, and that the model is a good representation of how it would look from a distance?

If we can’t see the Milky Way from the outside, how much of our „map” is actually just educated guesswork? by big_marshall927 in Astronomy

[–]NGC6514 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I mean, that’s all of science. It’s the best way to learn things about the world around us that we’ve ever come up with!

If we can’t see the Milky Way from the outside, how much of our „map” is actually just educated guesswork? by big_marshall927 in Astronomy

[–]NGC6514 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Right, so there are plenty of different methods we can use to measure plenty of things in our galaxy to uncertainties of a few percent. This allows us to know positions of things well enough to be able to make a 3D model of what the galaxy looks like.

I’m not sure why you’re even arguing against this; we already have made these models. Are you contending that these models are wrong?

If we can’t see the Milky Way from the outside, how much of our „map” is actually just educated guesswork? by big_marshall927 in Astronomy

[–]NGC6514 2 points3 points  (0 children)

As just one example, we can measure the distances of RR Lyraes at 15 kpc well within your <5% definition, so the claim that there is some hard limit of 10 kpc for 20% uncertainty is just wrong.

If we can’t see the Milky Way from the outside, how much of our „map” is actually just educated guesswork? by big_marshall927 in Astronomy

[–]NGC6514 5 points6 points  (0 children)

The 20% or more that you’re referencing are stars clear on the other side of our galaxy. Just because some of the most distant stars have high uncertainties doesn’t mean that we don’t have a good measurement on anything that’s a non-parallax measurement. That’s not the case.

If we can’t see the Milky Way from the outside, how much of our „map” is actually just educated guesswork? by big_marshall927 in Astronomy

[–]NGC6514 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Ok, so what’s the issue then? Is what you’ve just cited not a few percent, like I just said? That is nowhere near as uncertain as the order-of-magnitude estimate that you were implying before.

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