Astronomers spot unusually synchronized star formation' in ancient galaxy for 1st time

[Admin]

An old galaxy reveals clusters of young stars that have formed in an unusually synchronized fashion, challenging the idea that star formation declines as galaxies age.

Astronomers spot unusually synchronized star formation' in ancient galaxy for 1st time : Read more

 

[Mikeshbike]

If the Galaxy is 53 million light years away light took 53 million years to get to us. So how do we know star formation was 4 million years ago?

 

[Unclear Engineer]

If the Galaxy is 53 million light years away light took 53 million years to get to us. So how do we know star formation was 4 million years ago?

That is just media mis-speak.

What they mean is that it happened 57 million years ago, and we would have seen it happening 4 million years ago, if we were here then and had already developed the telescopes cited in the article.

 

[Mikeshbike]

That is just media mis-speak.

What they mean is that it happened 57 million years ago, and we would have seen it happening 4 million years ago, if we were here then and had already developed the telescopes cited in the article.

Thanks. I was trying to politely point out to the author their misspeak. You would hope technical writers would be more accurate for the non science literate readers. This is a small example of how mis information gets spread around. I think writers are in too much of a hurry to produce output that they don’t put themselves in the shoes of their readers. Thanks for the response!!

 

[Unclear Engineer]

You must have just joined us and missed the "X times the speed of sound" comparisons in some of the articles. What they do is divide some astronomical number like the speed of a star going around a black hole near the center of our galaxy (in mph) by the speed of sound in Earth's atmosphere at sea level (in mph). Sometimes they even use the mach number for the answer, which is the velocity divided by the LOCAL speed of sound, not the speed of sound somewhere else.

So, they totally miss the concept that the speed of "sound" in the local vicinity of the astronomical phenomenon that they are describing is surely far different from the speed of sound we think of as "the sound barrier" here on Earth. Not to mention that the speed of compression waves in that vicinity might has some actual physical effects worth considering.

The media authors seem to think that such comparisons are necessary to communicate the huge speed numbers. I just wish they would compare them to something that is not a variable that people do not understand, anyway. Maybe "X times the speed of satellites in low earth orbit"?

 

[Torbjorn Larsson]

Interesting confirmation of starbursts!

Thanks. I was trying to politely point out to the author their misspeak. You would hope technical writers would be more accurate for the non science literate readers. This is a small example of how mis information gets spread around. I think writers are in too much of a hurry to produce output that they don’t put themselves in the shoes of their readers.

You are the one that misspeak, is inaccurate, try to spread misinformation around and are in too much of a hurry to read the paper or put yourself in the shoes of your astronomers by reading a number of papers previously.

If you had taken the time to follow the link and read just the presented abstract it says clearly:

The cluster ring formed simultaneously ∼4 Myr ago.

By analogy, we propose that a density wave through the disc of this galaxy may have produced this gap in the central kpc. The CO filaments fragment into strings of dense, unresolved clouds with no evidence of a stellar counterpart. These clouds may be the sites of a future population of clusters in the ring. The free-fall time of these clouds, ∼10 Myr, is close to the orbital time of the CO ring. This coincidence could lead to a synchronous bursting ring, as is the case for the current ring.

Now, as anyone with a smidgen interest in astronomy should now, their reference is "here and now" of the observatory. They can't possibly be tasked to translate the individual observations to each reference frame and back, unless they have to. So they don't.

So if you really want to translate the given data to "it happened 53+4 = 57 million years ago", you can do it by yourself. But the 53 million year light travel distance is totally irrelevant to the dynamics of what we see. [But only because the galaxy lies so relatively close to us, else you had to figure in the space expansion as well.]

 

[fliptopfish]

Interesting confirmation of starbursts!


You are the one that misspeak, is inaccurate, try to spread misinformation around and are in too much of a hurry to read the paper or put yourself in the shoes of your astronomers by reading a number of papers previously.

If you had taken the time to follow the link and read just the presented abstract it says clearly:




Now, as anyone with a smidgen interest in astronomy should now, their reference is "here and now" of the observatory. They can't possibly be tasked to translate the individual observations to each reference frame and back, unless they have to. So they don't.

So if you really want to translate the given data to "it happened 53+4 = 57 million years ago", you can do it by yourself. But the 53 million year light travel distance is totally irrelevant to the dynamics of what we see. [But only because the galaxy lies so relatively close to us, else you had to figure in the space expansion as well.]

Couldn't agree more