What makes Cassiopeia A a fascinating supernova remnant from the 17th century?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Nugatory
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Supernova
AI Thread Summary
The discussion centers around the Washington Post's coverage of the IXPE orbiting telescope and its observations of Cassiopeia A, a supernova remnant from the 17th century located 11,000 light-years away. Participants express frustration with the article's handling of the time discrepancy between the observation and the actual event, suggesting a lack of clarity and logic. The conversation includes humorous commentary on the article's quality, with one participant humorously rating it a "minus 3" and referencing Albert Einstein in a playful critique of the publication's approach to scientific reporting. The overarching theme highlights concerns about the accuracy and coherence of media coverage in astronomy.
Nugatory
Mentor
Messages
15,479
Reaction score
10,619
From the Washington Post's coverage of the IXPE orbiting telescope:
Cassiopeia A is the remnant of a supernova explosion that took place when a gigantic star collapsed in the 17th century. It's visible in the night sky about 11,000 light-years away
 
Physics news on Phys.org
Mixing the time of observation with the actual time of event?

Come on, starting a rant for every illogical absurdity picked from the news would earn me a permanent ban within a day, I guess :doh: Don't take this so seriously o0)
 
On a scale of 1 ... 10, that WP article gets a "minus 3" - since we clearly can use any number we want to rate it.
 
Washington Post answering machine: "You have 67 missed calls from the ether by Albert Einstein"
 
Last edited:
nuuskur said:
Washington Post answering machine: "You have 67 missed calls from the ether by Albert Einstein"
Either there is an ether or there's not. It's ether-or.
 
  • Haha
  • Like
Likes nuuskur, BillTre and OmCheeto
Thread 'RIP Chen Ning Yang (1922-2025)'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yang_Chen-Ning ( photo from http://insti.physics.sunysb.edu/~yang/ ) https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/18/science/chen-ning-yang-dead.html https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdxrzzk02plo https://www.cpr.cuhk.edu.hk/en/press/mourning-professor-yang-chen-ning/ https://www.stonybrook.edu/commcms/physics/about/awards_and_prizes/_nobel_and_breakthrough_prizes/_profiles/yangc https://www.stonybrook.edu/commcms/physics/people/_profiles/yangc...
Thread 'In the early days of electricity, they didn't have wall plugs'
Hello scientists, engineers, etc. I have not had any questions for you recently, so have not participated here. I was scanning some material and ran across these 2 ads. I had posted them at another forum, and I thought you may be interested in them as well. History is fascinating stuff! Some houses may have had plugs, but many homes just screwed the appliance into the light socket overhead. Does anyone know when electric wall plugs were in widespread use? 1906 ad DDTJRAC Even big...
Back
Top