Talk:1371: Brightness

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
Jump to: navigation, search

Funny. But of course, while this technique, when applied to the sun, correctly infers the earth, it would also infer a planet around pretty much any star except Polaris; presumably incorrectly in at least some cases. 108.162.212.24 13:39, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

I like that - good point... though, there should be a small sliver of Earth where Polaris will be visible during the "day" and will sink slightly below the horizon for the "night", so I would think you could even toss that star into the group, right? It's not EXACTLY above the north pole (it's off by almost 1 degree, I believe) Brettpeirce (talk) 15:08, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Polaris is not visible at all in the southern hemisphere. Someone who lives exactly on the equator would in theory see it rise and set, but it's tough to observe something that's one degree above the horizon. Jim E (talk) 15:45, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Assuming he's talking about exoplanet astronomers on Earth, the title-text would require a double reflection. Something on the day-side of the Earth would have to reflect sunlight to space, and something in space would have to reflect this reflected light back into a telescope on the day-side of the Earth. What could this be? The Moon? During a solar eclipse, or even otherwise? (light reflected off the "dark" PART of the moon (washed out by the light reflected by the illuminated part) 108.162.208.169 14:27, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

Nope. A "double reflection" does only happen at a mirror based telescope (most common today). But a refractor telescope just uses lenses to look straight into the space. A mirror at that path would just show yourself like at your bathroom, or at larger distances your house, or the Earth... --Dgbrt (talk) 22:23, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

The brilliance of a star orbited by an exoplanet appears dimmer every time the exoplanet rotates around the star, i.e. once a year in exoplanet time. But in Megan's situation, the sun is occluded by the Earth every 24 hours. Therefore she may conclude that the Earth rotates around the sun in 24 hours... Seudo (talk) 13:02, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

Please feel free to disagree - I'd love a critique - but the first time I read the title text and every subsequent time I read it, I interpret it as the human eye performing "careful analysis" of the "reflected light" from every surface around us... that is, seeing with the naked eye - no mirrors or refraction, no other heavenly bodies involved Brettpeirce (talk) 13:10, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure Randall refers to 1231: Habitable Zone because the Polarimetry Method was only successful at this exoplanet: HD 189733 b. But this observations were not done at daylight. Analysing a reflection of the Earth requires daylight, otherwise the reflected object would be black. So "recently" just refers to a former comic here but not that unique and maybe questionable findings by some astronomers. Randall would criticise this single work and media hype on a "blue" planet. An example how he is confused on press releases it this comic: 1189: Voyager 1--Dgbrt (talk) 21:13, 28 May 2014 (UTC)