I received a couple emails regarding my post on the light-year and creationism.
One of the individuals noted that the trigonometry and mathematical calculations involved in currently measuring the stellar distances is flawed. Coincidentally, a Mormon TA I had back as an undergrad said the same thing in a Meteorology class.
So how exactly can you test this conspiracy theory?
Perhaps the easiest at-home experiment everyone can do is via satellite communications.
Want to know why it sucks to surf the internet or play twitch games with a satellite dish? Because of the lag time, the distance the signal must take to travel into geosynchronous orbit (22,000 miles away) and back.
This round-trip effort takes about 250 milliseconds and is the reason why talking to someone on a sat phone blows. It is the same reason why people in other far away countries on TV look semi-retarded for their awkwardly long response after a question is asked in live interviews.
Another doable experiment is bouncing a laser off a fixed target in space, such as the Moon. Back during the Apollo missions, this was done by NASA in a series of projects called the Laser Ranging Retroreflector Experiment. The Moon is about 240,000 miles away and based on the speed-of-light it should take about 1.3 seconds to go one way. And it does.
If you believe these results, then take the following leap of faith: to Mars.
Again, the distance between this void can be measured based upon how fast the signal is going (e.g. speed-of-light) and how long it takes to go from one place to the other. Thus typically, the signal from the various robots and rovers hovering on or around the Red Planet ranges from anywhere between 3 minutes to 22 just to travel one-way (remember, we are at variable distances throughout the year).
And if you believe that hocus pocus, then you might hitch a ride through the outer planets — Holst’s Grand Symphony, with a last stop beyond Pluto and Sedna. [See also Grand Tour]
Now that they have reached beyond the interstellar medium, when Pioneer 10 & 11, along with Voyager 1 & 2 were still talking to us, it would take 12+ hours just to have their signal bounce one-way between our rock and themselves. Voyager 1, the farthest man-made object, is nearly 14 light-hours away.
And perhaps in the near future, these deep-space probes will ultimately bump into the cabal, some nefarious dragons, the real machinations behind this conspiracy. In the meantime, you can check out other types of astronomy such as radio, x-ray, and good ol’ fashioned optical — too pierce the veil, the shroud for any shenanigans.
Maybe it is what Condoleeza Rice discovered in the East.
If you think that the Moon is the only satellite currently orbiting Earth, you would have offended 10,000+ objects racing haphazardly around our humble abode. Heck, it’s not even the only natural heavenly body captured by our collective gravity.
Granted, most of these are immeasurably smaller than a few centimeters, but hundreds are the size of kitchen appliances and small Mr. Bean cars.
Either way, it is seemingly impossible to detect these paint chips, metallic splinters, spliced wires, and a cornucopia of hi-tech wares from the ground with visual scopes. US Space Command catalogs them through the use of radar.
And interestingly enough, when humans do detect these objects, they are usually reported as a UFO – because we are still unaccustomed to their alien existence. [Each year, the ISS along with Venus are typically the most confused objects in the sky]
With that said, for hundreds of year’s humanity and perhaps other optically-inclined creatures have been able to look at our solar neighbors, to see what is cracking each evening.
From empirical observation, what we do know is this: like a teenage heart throb, several other bodies such as Jupiter and Saturn have groupies that follow them around everywhere. Saturn, much like Justin Timberlake, has countless carbon-based objects of unusual sizes and dimensions orbiting it perpetually.
But where did these city-sized rocks and snowballs originally gestate from? When did they become fans on an elliptical tour throughout the cosmos?
Despite all of the advanced wizardry various institutions and observatories have pointed up at the celestial body, these questions still remain unanswered.
That is not to say that the solution is to jump to a supernatural mover either.
In fact, over the past fifty years alone, various researchers have discovered several other, fainter rings around Saturn. And it seems as if the ring system may be in constant flux.
Contributing to this peanut gallery are moons such as Io whom eject mass into space through volcanic processes. In addition, other variables should be considered, like long and short period comets’ blazing through portions of the solar system, captured bodies from the Kuiper Belt, Oort objects that missed the taxi after last call, and random stragglers from the asteroid belt.
Of course, another hypothetical idea that has the same amount of proof and validity as a supernatural mover is that natives of Saturn were bored. And with their idle hands they somehow erected and launched a pile of rocks into their atmosphere accomplishing about the same as NASA’s manned program does today.
Does it look like the photo on the box?
There is a bigger picture, one in which our own planet and neighborhood is itself a raging fanboy of. For better and for worse, we are in the Orion sector of a wispy arm, one arm out of half-a-dozen that comprise a spinning mass of millions of lead singers, drummers, and one-hit wonders – real bonified Stars.
And the question then should be asked, how long did it take for us to get in this spinning line?
That question can be answered one of two ways. The first, through scientific measurements such as the decay of metals found in stars vis-à-vis spectrum analysis, the Hubble Red Shift, or my personal favorite: the use of trigonometry in determining the distance between star systems.
Or you can deny the existence of galaxies in general, the Milky Way in particular and claim that what I see on the other end of the telescope is a fiction. Because it either took a measurably long time (i.e. more than 6000 years) for all of the star dust to organize like it did, or it is a supernatural test of my faith in Zeus and his mysterious ways.
[Special thanks to Alex Temal for a couple of the links.]
