3 ms·
Astronomy is afforded very few epistemological amenities. In a sense, N can only go up if we get independent verification from different techniques. However, ou
by mxkopy 4y ago
Astronomy is afforded very few epistemological amenities. In a sense, N can only go up if we get independent verification from different techniques. However, our tools have become incredibly sophisticated and sensitive so we can be very sure about what we're seeing, if not what it means.
I'd imagine one of the techniques used is to look for time-varying influences in the data, which implies there are bodies orbiting each other. If there aren't any, then you can look at the spectroscopic signature of the light and see if it makes sense for a black hole. I'd imagine black holes do nothing to refracted light, but dark bodies would result in slightly blueshifted light as 'newer' light reflects off its surface. This might be what PyAutoLens does (as well as fitting the shape of distortions and such)
- marcosdumay 4y agoEven in astronomy, when one starts to say "this black hole is about the size of our galaxy", it should raise epistemological questions. This finding seems to have a highly complex relationship to the data, and to not have been replicated anywhere yet. This is the perfect place to add a "something that looks like" before the "galaxy sized black hole". But well, this is a criticism of journalism anyway, not of astronomy.
- bobbylarrybobby 4y agoIf a photon is deflected by a black hole, it must also impart momentum to the black hole. But this means it imparts energy as well, so shouldn't it be red shifted as well?
- mxkopy 4y agoThat's true but it's also true of some other dark body of the same mass. "do nothing to refracted light" was poor wording, my bad - it's more like gravitational lensing is the only thing that happens to its light, as opposed to adding new peaks to the spectrograph and such.