Wednesday, March 01, 2006
Oh, Those Grand Claims Of Science
Scientists at the European Southern Observatory in Cerro Paranal, Chile, say they have created the first artificial star in the Southern Hemisphere."Artificial Star," my eye! Oh no, it's not good enough that they came up with a way to correct for atmospheric blurring, a major accomplishment for earthbound astronomy - NO! - they have to claim they made a star. When I first saw the article, I thought someone had final gotten a fusion reaction to sustain - now that would be an artifical star!
[...]
On Jan. 28 at 11:07 p.m. local time the researchers launched a laser beam of several watts from the site of ESO's Very Large Telescope array, producing an artificial star about 55 miles into the atmosphere. Despite this star being about 20 times fainter than the faintest star that can be seen with the unaided eye, the scientists said it is bright enough for adaptive optics to measure and correct the atmosphere's blurring effect.
Related Tags: artifical star, astronomy, lasers, grandiosity, sarcasm
