Red Giants and White Dwarfs (Third)
“A masterpiece of science.”—Werner von Braun.
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read moreAstronomical Hide & Seek: Planet X, It wasn’t there
You know the old Hughes Mearns poem, “As I was going up the stair, I met a man who wasn’t there . . .”
Astronomers study objects we assume are really there. But sometimes they’re not. A few months ago we mentioned rainbows, which stirred some controversy. Are they there7. Sort of. A rainbow is nothing but a group of light rays converging on your eyes. It has no solidity. It cannot cast a shadow.
But its colors are real, right? Well, colors are pulses of magnetism and electricity. By themselves they have no visual properties. When nobody’s looking, neither Mars nor a rainbow has color. Rather, we animals respond to the invisible electromagnetic stimulation; our retinas and brains conjure the experience of spectral colors. They’re not out there on their own.
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