I don’t know where to start...
They can’t even tell if PLUTO is a real planet or not, but they can peer at THIS thing, FIFTY light years away, THROUGH clouds that surround it to tell us that it’s spewing water.. okay..not exactly water.. “telltale light signatures of hydrogen and oxygen atoms”
Come on, it’s a STAR. That means HOT. “temperatures are a few thousand degrees celsius..”
And water is produced out of such heat HOW???
They can tell you all about Pluto's mass, shape, orbit and so forth. Whether it is a planet or not is a matter of definition and hence essentially arbitrary. It's a human classification category, nothing to do with the object itself.
If we wanted to, we could reclassify any sun-orbiting objects smaller than the earth as "non-planets" and Mercury, Venus and Mars would promptly drop out of the "planet" category.
BTW, I’m with you in general.
Scientists make the most remarkable statements based on amazingly little data.
Me either. Guess I'll start at the beginning.They can’t even tell if PLUTO is a real planet or not,
But that's a matter of definition, isn't it? They argued amongst themselves about what it means to be a planet and as a result of that shifting definition, Pluto lost out, that's all. That reclassification had nothing to do with something they couldn't tell about the planet.but they can peer at THIS thing, FIFTY light years away, THROUGH clouds that surround it
Actually, it's 750 light years away. Secondly, they are looking at things at infrared wavelengths. The clouds are transparent at those wavelengths, and what they are looking at doesn't require such fantastic resolution either; the jets shoot outward 5,000 A.U. in either direction.to tell us that it’s spewing water.. okay..not exactly water.. “telltale light signatures of hydrogen and oxygen atoms”
Come on, it’s a STAR. That means HOT. “temperatures are a few thousand degrees celsius..” And water is produced out of such heat HOW???
The article explains that as well. When that fast moving (i.e., hot) material hits the interstellar medium, it is slowed down (cooled) and condenses again into water. That's both a matter of well-established physical and chemical law, and can probably be observed directly through spectroscopy to boot.
I don’t get it, either. How could all that O2 and heat not result in the violent oxidation of everything? Not to mention H2...