3066: Cosmic Distance Calibration - Revision history

Jkshapiro: /* Explanation */ Tightening things up

2026-02-19T02:42:57Z

‎Explanation: Tightening things up

Kynde: More on news

2026-02-08T17:57:48Z

Kynde: Category:News

2026-02-07T14:56:32Z

Category:News

BobcatInABox at 13:36, 19 April 2025

2025-04-19T13:36:24Z

BobcatInABox at 13:35, 19 April 2025

2025-04-19T13:35:30Z

SkiesShaper: swapped part of a sentence back around

2025-04-10T01:24:50Z

swapped part of a sentence back around

SkiesShaper: further improved clarity

2025-04-10T01:22:10Z

further improved clarity

SkiesShaper: rewrote parts of transcript for clarity

2025-04-10T01:16:19Z

rewrote parts of transcript for clarity

172.69.246.134: Fix grammar

2025-03-29T12:24:25Z

Fix grammar

FaviFake: /* Explanation */

2025-03-26T15:55:44Z

‎Explanation

@@ Line 12: / Line 12: @@
 This is one of the [[:Category:News|News]] comics, delivering cosmology news.
-Astronomical photographs sometimes have various labels added for the objects in them, such as names, distances, stellar classifications, etc. The comic interprets the labels next to stars in the image as actual objects in space, which is absurd because, among other reasons, they are in English, they could be observed from other distances and angles where they wouldn't be correct, they wouldn't stay in place by the star, and probably a hundred other reasons. If these labels were to become astrophysical objects in reality, made of any kind of matter we're aware of, it would quickly result in major changes to the universe. As each of these labels would need to be clearly visible from an observatory, they would require monstrous size — maybe even big enough to collapse into black holes when applied to particularly distant stars. They would also create a sudden lack of need for themselves, as the stars would be gravitationally attracted to their respective labels and promptly destroyed.
+Astronomical photographs sometimes have various labels added for the objects in them, such as names, distances, stellar classifications, etc. The comic interprets the labels next to stars in the image as actual objects in space. If these labels were astrophysical objects in reality, they would be of monstrous size, especially for particularly distant stars. They would also create a sudden lack of need for themselves, as the stars would be gravitationally attracted to their respective labels and promptly destroyed.
 The label in this image appears to be pointing to a star in the spiral galaxy M106 (also known as "{{w|Messier 106}}" and "NGC 4258"), located between 22 and 25 million light-years (MLY) away from Earth and compatible with the 23.6163 MLY shown in the comic.

← Older revision		Revision as of 17:57, 8 February 2026
Line 10:		Line 10:

	==Explanation==		==Explanation==
		+	This is one of the [[:Category:News\|News]] comics, delivering cosmology news.
		+
	Astronomical photographs sometimes have various labels added for the objects in them, such as names, distances, stellar classifications, etc. The comic interprets the labels next to stars in the image as actual objects in space, which is absurd because, among other reasons, they are in English, they could be observed from other distances and angles where they wouldn't be correct, they wouldn't stay in place by the star, and probably a hundred other reasons. If these labels were to become astrophysical objects in reality, made of any kind of matter we're aware of, it would quickly result in major changes to the universe. As each of these labels would need to be clearly visible from an observatory, they would require monstrous size — maybe even big enough to collapse into black holes when applied to particularly distant stars. They would also create a sudden lack of need for themselves, as the stars would be gravitationally attracted to their respective labels and promptly destroyed.		Astronomical photographs sometimes have various labels added for the objects in them, such as names, distances, stellar classifications, etc. The comic interprets the labels next to stars in the image as actual objects in space, which is absurd because, among other reasons, they are in English, they could be observed from other distances and angles where they wouldn't be correct, they wouldn't stay in place by the star, and probably a hundred other reasons. If these labels were to become astrophysical objects in reality, made of any kind of matter we're aware of, it would quickly result in major changes to the universe. As each of these labels would need to be clearly visible from an observatory, they would require monstrous size — maybe even big enough to collapse into black holes when applied to particularly distant stars. They would also create a sudden lack of need for themselves, as the stars would be gravitationally attracted to their respective labels and promptly destroyed.

@@ Line 34: / Line 34: @@
 {{comic discussion}}
 [[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
 [[Category:Cosmology]]
 [[Category:Astronomy]]
 [[Category:Telescopes]]

@@ Line 10: / Line 10: @@
 ==Explanation==
 Astronomical photographs sometimes have various labels added for the objects in them, such as names, distances, stellar classifications, etc. The comic interprets the labels next to stars in the image as actual objects in space, which is absurd because, among other reasons, they are in English, they could be observed from other distances and angles where they wouldn't be correct, they wouldn't stay in place by the star, and probably a hundred other reasons. If these labels were to become astrophysical objects in reality, made of any kind of matter we're aware of, it would quickly result in major changes to the universe. As each of these labels would need to be clearly visible from an observatory, they would require monstrous size — maybe even big enough to collapse into black holes when applied to particularly distant stars. They would also create a sudden lack of need for themselves, as the stars would be gravitationally attracted to their respective labels and promptly destroyed.
@@ Line 18: / Line 17: @@
 ==Transcript==
 :[Ponytail is standing behind a lectern, pointing towards a large screen behind her with a stick. On the screen is a scattering of small, hard-to-make-out galaxies and stars with illegible writing next to them. On the screen behind Ponytail, one of these stars has been circled, and there are graphics indicating it is being repeatedly magnified along with the text next to it. At the first level of magnification the text next to this star remains somewhat illegible, but at the second level it is readable, albeit partially cut off and blurry.]

@@ Line 19: / Line 19: @@
 ==Transcript==
 {{incomplete transcript|Need to further fix grammar and improve flow.}}
-:[Ponytail is standing behind a lectern, pointing towards a large screen behind her with a stick. On the screen is a scattering of small, hard-to-make-out galaxies and stars with illegible writing next to them. On the screen behind Ponytail, one of these stars has been circled, and there are graphics indicating it is being magnified along with the text next to it. At the first level of magnification the text next to this star remains somewhat illegible, but at the second level it is readable, albeit partially cutoff and blurry.]
+:[Ponytail is standing behind a lectern, pointing towards a large screen behind her with a stick. On the screen is a scattering of small, hard-to-make-out galaxies and stars with illegible writing next to them. On the screen behind Ponytail, one of these stars has been circled, and there are graphics indicating it is being repeatedly magnified along with the text next to it. At the first level of magnification the text next to this star remains somewhat illegible, but at the second level it is readable, albeit partially cut off and blurry.]
-:[First level of magnification (... represents cut-off text)]:
+:[First level of magnification (... represents cut off text)]:
 :M106 0-06832
 :Distance:
 :23.6163 MLY (27...
-:[Second level of magnification (... represents cut-off text)]:
+:[Second level of magnification (... represents cut off text)]:
 :M106 0-06...
 :Distance:

@@ Line 15: / Line 15: @@
 The label in this image appears to be pointing to a star in the spiral galaxy M106 (also known as "{{w|Messier 106}}" and "NGC 4258"), located between 22 and 25 million light-years (MLY) away from Earth and compatible with the 23.6163 MLY shown in the comic.
-The title text extends the main joke by suggesting that the "crosshairs" around red giant stars, put into an image by an astronomer to indicate those stars starting to burn helium, are actual objects in space which are of a standardized size when seen from Earth. One such crosshair can be seen in the comic. Stars at this stage of stellar evolution are of particular astronomical interest because they all have the {{w|Standard candles|same absolute brightness}}, allowing their distance to be determined because the observed luminosity is a simple inverse-distance-squared falloff from a known original value. This is referred to as the "{{w|tip of the red-giant branch}}" (TRGB) distance calculation method, referring to the red-giant region of the {{w|Hertzsprung–Russell diagram}}. This allows estimation of distances not only to the stars themselves, but also to distant galaxies that contain them. In the weeks before this comic appeared, [https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/nasas-webb-hubble-telescopes-affirm-universes-expansion-rate-puzzle-persists/ findings based on measurements of star and galaxy distances] reinforced a longstanding quandary in cosmology known as the {{w|Hubble tension}}.
+The title text extends the main joke by suggesting that the "crosshairs" around red giant stars, put into an image by an astronomer to indicate those stars starting to burn helium, are actual objects in space which are of a standardized size when seen from Earth. One such set of crosshairs can be seen in the comic. Stars at this stage of stellar evolution are of particular astronomical interest because they all have the {{w|Standard candles|same absolute brightness}}, allowing their distance to be determined because the observed luminosity is a simple inverse-distance-squared falloff from a known original value. This is referred to as the "{{w|tip of the red-giant branch}}" (TRGB) distance calculation method, referring to the red-giant region of the {{w|Hertzsprung–Russell diagram}}. This allows estimation of distances not only to the stars themselves, but also to distant galaxies that contain them. In the weeks before this comic appeared, [https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/nasas-webb-hubble-telescopes-affirm-universes-expansion-rate-puzzle-persists/ findings based on measurements of star and galaxy distances] reinforced a longstanding quandary in cosmology known as the {{w|Hubble tension}}.
 ==Transcript==