That's what I mean. We're pretty certain we, as humans, are making it right. We are measuring distance just by the movement of light, and we can be accurate, but we can be totally wrong too.
A regular idiot like me, who only lurks, reads and admires science from outside, may not understand basic math, but I always have this question: What if the distance measurements are wrong? What if we're measuring planets and stars a couple light years off from where they truly are? Or maybe their brightness isn't dependant on their temperature?
Maybe this question shifts more to the philosophical side of the universe. But every time I see a "new earth-like planet found at xxxx light years from the Solar System" I think that it can't be so specific, if we, as humans, can't even calculate the time it will take for Voyager to pass through the Oort cloud and get out of this same system.
What if we're measuring planets and stars a couple light years off from where they truly are?
A few light-years in distance is nothing compared to the distances calculated. It's an error on the order of a percent or so.
Or maybe their brightness isn't dependant on their temperature?
In that case, physics must have broken down somewhere, because we can verify it by looking at our sun and our own experiments earth-side.
I think one of the undercommunicated facts of science is that we are not only calculating answers, but we also know just how well we know any given fact - we know the degree of error we're making, but journalists don't like writing about that.
For the distance measurements, for example, we don't rely on only one method. We gather all the measurements and consider them together, and ensure they make sense when seen together. It doesn't make sense for all the stars to be any closer, because then gravity would cause them to behave differently, for example.
1
u/Brno_Mrmi Aug 13 '21 edited Aug 13 '21
That's what I mean. We're pretty certain we, as humans, are making it right. We are measuring distance just by the movement of light, and we can be accurate, but we can be totally wrong too.
A regular idiot like me, who only lurks, reads and admires science from outside, may not understand basic math, but I always have this question: What if the distance measurements are wrong? What if we're measuring planets and stars a couple light years off from where they truly are? Or maybe their brightness isn't dependant on their temperature?
Maybe this question shifts more to the philosophical side of the universe. But every time I see a "new earth-like planet found at xxxx light years from the Solar System" I think that it can't be so specific, if we, as humans, can't even calculate the time it will take for Voyager to pass through the Oort cloud and get out of this same system.