They get paid to write this stuff?!!

[deanm (Dean)]

Hi Matt:

http://www.universetoday.com/127669/...ts-aliens-but/

"This event, known as the Lorimer Burst, lasted a mere five milliseconds and appeared to be coming from a location near the Large Magellanic Cloud, billions of light years away."

If you follow the link you posted (above) in your article, you'll note:

"The Large Magellanic Cloud is a dwarf galaxy located about 160,000 light years away. In fact, it’s the third closest galaxy after the Sagittarius Dwarf and the Canis Major Dwarf Galaxies.

Cheers!

Dean"

[raymo]

I suspect it was just badly written. I think they meant that it was coming from near the direction of the LMC, but was 6 million etc etc.
raymo

[deanm (Dean)]

Originally Posted by raymo

I suspect it was just badly written. I think they meant that it was coming from near the direction of the LMC, but was 6 million etc etc.
raymo

Can't say I agree - 'hundreds of thousands' vs 'billions'?

That's 4 orders of magnitude off - not a simple typo!

I suspect sloppy journalism (wow! something new in the universe!)

Dean.

[AstralTraveller (David)]

I've seen similar mix ups many times before and used to be quite critical of the ignorance of science journalists. These days I generally cut them a bit of slack - unless it's a total howler. I suspect that employers look for someone who is a journalist first and a scientist second. So they may have no, or very little, science training. Even if they have studied science they may not have studied the branch of science they are reporting on. Perhaps they are a chemist being asked to report on cutting edge advances in astronomy, medicine or geology. They also have to get that breaking news out fast. No time to do enough background reading to get themselves across the subject.

I know from personal experience that at least some journalists are willing to correct errors when they are informed of them. Some years ago the ABC web site reported on a paper in Nature by John Nott et al. in which the changing frequency of tropic cyclones over the past several thousand years was investigated using oxygen isotope ratios of the CaCO3 in speleothems of tropical caves. This is an area of science I know something about (as does at least one other member of this forum). They correctly reported the central findings of the paper but made some errors in the supporting information. For instance, they said that oxygen-18 is formed in tropical cyclones (no - there are no nuclear reactions in cyclones) and that the rainwater is trapped inside the stalactite (no - it is incorporated into the CaCO3 of the stalactite). So I emailed the ABC and explained their errors. About an hour later the story had been amended and there were my words in place of the errors. I was a bit chuffed.


BTW Another example today. Reporting on the discovery of the most distant galaxy yet seen the reader was told:

"The key to the discovery was precisely measuring the shift of the galaxy's light into longer, redder wavelengths, which directly corresponds to how far the photons had travelled before reaching Hubble's eye."

Now, we all know that isn't entirely correct but it does get the basic point across. How critical should we be?

[sheeny (Al)]

I don't think they are saying that the LMC is billions of light years away. I think they are saying the FRB's are from billions of light years away, but in angular position in the sky they are near the LMC.

Al.

[bugeater (Marty)]

A quick google brings up FRB 150418 as originating in an elliptical galaxy 6 billion light years away, so that may be the source of that number.

It seems they've confused direction with location.

[xelasnave]

I think the editor perhaps should have spotted the problem.

[xelasnave]

Bad astronomy how ironic if the editor is who I think he be.