8 ms·

Can those be just globular clusters in their 'bright' phase? Globular clusters are not even mentioned in that article, which is weird.

by sesm 2y ago

ceejayoz 2y ago
I'm gonna guess that the prominent astronomers at several top-notch universities mentioned have heard of globular clusters, and that the reason it's not mentioned is it's not relevant.
- nilkn 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - ceejayoz 2y ago
    > Either you don't know (why reply at all?) Because, as a lay person, I’ve heard of globular clusters, and that means several experts in the field not talking about them points not to “weird”, but to “nope”.
    - nilkn 2y ago
      I don't contest the answer "nope" (in fact, I provided an explanation) -- I contest your decision to prioritize snark over helpfulness.
      - ceejayoz 2y ago
        I mainly take issue with the “weird” designation, as if every science article must somehow explain everything unrelated the phenomenon isn’t. Anyone with JWST time slots knows what a globular cluster is. If they say it’s weird and unexplained, it probably is at present.
  - hollerith 2y ago
    Is this level of tone policing helpful on net, though?
    - nilkn 2y ago
      In my estimation, yes. I'd like to see replies here focus on helpfulness and knowledge sharing. You are certainly free to disagree.
      - hollerith 2y ago
        OK, even though the comment that you think is too snarky does not bother me, I will take this conversation to mean that I should use a stricter standard than merely "would not bother me" to which to hold my own comments. The comment at which the snark was direct is a bad comment (the writer does not know enough about astronomy to make any weird feeling he has about an astronomy article to be the least bit informative) but I'll downvote comments like that rather than try to defend snarky replies to them.
    - ProAm 2y ago
      I'll say on HN I do appreciate that. This is one of the last bastions of good conversations on the net. We all try to do our best to keep it that way, and one of the methods is to call out comments as such. Just my opinion but I appreciate it, snarky or not we just want good conversation even if its among dissenting opinions.
    - airstrike 2y ago
      https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes. > Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community. > Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. > Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes. > Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something. Basically everyone is wrong here
    - deleted 2y ago
  - at_a_remove 2y ago
    It certainly could be helpful, as it is a reminder that the people making the observations also have functioning brains and, being more expert in the topic than the naive querent, would most likely have already considered the obvious. After some contemplation of the rather mild rebuke, the querent might ask better questions, or at least refrain from asking bad ones. Many folks on HN, when encountering non-"tech" articles in the sciences, have a somewhat distressing habit of plunging toward assumptions which suggest that the people in the article have failed to look for the obvious and/or are decades behind in what the subjects know. This is especially sorrowful, because who among us hasn't suffered through someone asking us, in our specialty, "Why don't you just hit the EASY button? It's around here somewhere! You're making this sound hard!"
  - jvanderbot 2y ago
    Both are wrong. A more unassuming way of phrasing it would be "how did they rule out X", and of course the better response is to take the most generous interpretation and provide and informative response to the spirit of that generous interpretation.
  - ordu 2y ago
    > Is that level of snark necessary or helpful to anyone? I think a far more valuable and helpful response would be to point out why these are not globular clusters. Either you don't know (why reply at all?), or you deliberately chose to withhold that (again: why reply at all?). I agree with you, that the explanation why that can't be globular clusters would be much more helpful, but if one wants to get it, they'd better do not say things like "globular clusters are not even mentioned in that article, which is weird." People see such statements and answer to them. When you're asking a question you need to be focused on your question, a little slip can lead to results exactly as we see. If I was asking that question, I would mention my disappointment with the lack of mention of globular clusters, but I wouldn't call the article weird because of this, I'd rather mention my limited knowledge of astronomy and my curiosity and my hunger for knowledge, and I make it clear that these are the reasons of my disappointment, not the bad work of the authors of the article.
- fch42 2y ago
  It's unfortunate that during "professional development" we collectively appear to unlearn saying "no". Or, more widely, learn to avoid using simple direct language. It's not limited to scientists :-(
  - somenameforme 2y ago
    I think it's because the implication of any such question is how/why did they exclude.... It's like when you ask somebody, did you have a nice day? If they respond "yes" or "no", that's breaking the unstated rules of conversation. And I would add that perceived competence does not preclude elementary solutions or problems. We're all humans, and humans are entirely prone to silliness, regardless of our credentials. NASA lost a near billion dollar Mars orbiter [1] because nobody, of the thousands of highly credentialed people that worked on that project, bothered to ask, 'Did anybody make sure that all components are using the same measurement system (metric vs customary), run a sim, or at least sanity check the data we're getting back?' Because surprisingly, the answer there would have been "no." [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter
- blueflow 2y ago
  Why? How do the astronomers know that its many stars, how did they rule out its the normal amount but brighter?
  - ceejayoz 2y ago
    Which aspect of the answer do you want? You can write a textbook on such a broad question; how we determine the mass of a galaxy, its composition, its distance, etc. JWST is seeing brand new things; globular clusters are so well documented as to be part of the original Messier catalog that predates the United States.
    - blueflow 2y ago
      The answer is not rocket science. JWST saw something, scientists made an interpretation, there should be an explanation "why" somewhere. And you won't need to write a textbook on that because you can cite prior work.
      - ceejayoz 2y ago
        There is no solid/proven explanation right now. Only hypotheses to be tested. It’s a new phenomenon they’re working to understand.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
stevenrj 2y ago
Assuming that all their light is coming from stars, they have far too much stellar mass (with stellar masses similar to the Milky Way) to be the progenitors of today's globular clusters.
- sesm 2y ago
  In globular clusters stars tend to have similar age in terms of main sequence progression. If most of the stars approach their brightest phase, the cluster will be extremely bright relative to its mass.
  - stevenrj 2y ago
    Such a mass-to-light ratio is accounted for when computing a stellar mass.
    - sesm 2y ago
      I've read the paper, those objects have all properties of AGNs, but since having AGNs so early doesn't fit current mainstream, authors try very hard to come up with a different explanation.

Can those be just globular clusters in their 'bright' phase? Globular clusters are not even mentioned in that article, which is weird.

by sesm 2y ago

Can those be just globular clusters in their 'bright' phase? Globular clusters are not even mentioned in that article, which is weird.

ceejayoz 2y ago

I'm gonna guess that the prominent astronomers at several top-notch universities mentioned have heard of globular clusters, and that the reason it's not mentioned is it's not relevant.

nilkn 2y ago
[flagged]
- ceejayoz 2y ago
  > Either you don't know (why reply at all?) Because, as a lay person, I’ve heard of globular clusters, and that means several experts in the field not talking about them points not to “weird”, but to “nope”.
  - nilkn 2y ago
    I don't contest the answer "nope" (in fact, I provided an explanation) -- I contest your decision to prioritize snark over helpfulness.
    - ceejayoz 2y ago
      I mainly take issue with the “weird” designation, as if every science article must somehow explain everything unrelated the phenomenon isn’t. Anyone with JWST time slots knows what a globular cluster is. If they say it’s weird and unexplained, it probably is at present.
- hollerith 2y ago
  Is this level of tone policing helpful on net, though?
  - nilkn 2y ago
    In my estimation, yes. I'd like to see replies here focus on helpfulness and knowledge sharing. You are certainly free to disagree.
    - hollerith 2y ago
      OK, even though the comment that you think is too snarky does not bother me, I will take this conversation to mean that I should use a stricter standard than merely "would not bother me" to which to hold my own comments. The comment at which the snark was direct is a bad comment (the writer does not know enough about astronomy to make any weird feeling he has about an astronomy article to be the least bit informative) but I'll downvote comments like that rather than try to defend snarky replies to them.
  - ProAm 2y ago
    I'll say on HN I do appreciate that. This is one of the last bastions of good conversations on the net. We all try to do our best to keep it that way, and one of the methods is to call out comments as such. Just my opinion but I appreciate it, snarky or not we just want good conversation even if its among dissenting opinions.
  - airstrike 2y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes. > Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community. > Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. > Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes. > Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something. Basically everyone is wrong here
  - deleted 2y ago
- at_a_remove 2y ago
  It certainly could be helpful, as it is a reminder that the people making the observations also have functioning brains and, being more expert in the topic than the naive querent, would most likely have already considered the obvious. After some contemplation of the rather mild rebuke, the querent might ask better questions, or at least refrain from asking bad ones. Many folks on HN, when encountering non-"tech" articles in the sciences, have a somewhat distressing habit of plunging toward assumptions which suggest that the people in the article have failed to look for the obvious and/or are decades behind in what the subjects know. This is especially sorrowful, because who among us hasn't suffered through someone asking us, in our specialty, "Why don't you just hit the EASY button? It's around here somewhere! You're making this sound hard!"
- jvanderbot 2y ago
  Both are wrong. A more unassuming way of phrasing it would be "how did they rule out X", and of course the better response is to take the most generous interpretation and provide and informative response to the spirit of that generous interpretation.
- ordu 2y ago
  > Is that level of snark necessary or helpful to anyone? I think a far more valuable and helpful response would be to point out why these are not globular clusters. Either you don't know (why reply at all?), or you deliberately chose to withhold that (again: why reply at all?). I agree with you, that the explanation why that can't be globular clusters would be much more helpful, but if one wants to get it, they'd better do not say things like "globular clusters are not even mentioned in that article, which is weird." People see such statements and answer to them. When you're asking a question you need to be focused on your question, a little slip can lead to results exactly as we see. If I was asking that question, I would mention my disappointment with the lack of mention of globular clusters, but I wouldn't call the article weird because of this, I'd rather mention my limited knowledge of astronomy and my curiosity and my hunger for knowledge, and I make it clear that these are the reasons of my disappointment, not the bad work of the authors of the article.
fch42 2y ago
It's unfortunate that during "professional development" we collectively appear to unlearn saying "no". Or, more widely, learn to avoid using simple direct language. It's not limited to scientists :-(
- somenameforme 2y ago
  I think it's because the implication of any such question is how/why did they exclude.... It's like when you ask somebody, did you have a nice day? If they respond "yes" or "no", that's breaking the unstated rules of conversation. And I would add that perceived competence does not preclude elementary solutions or problems. We're all humans, and humans are entirely prone to silliness, regardless of our credentials. NASA lost a near billion dollar Mars orbiter [1] because nobody, of the thousands of highly credentialed people that worked on that project, bothered to ask, 'Did anybody make sure that all components are using the same measurement system (metric vs customary), run a sim, or at least sanity check the data we're getting back?' Because surprisingly, the answer there would have been "no." [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter
blueflow 2y ago
Why? How do the astronomers know that its many stars, how did they rule out its the normal amount but brighter?
- ceejayoz 2y ago
  Which aspect of the answer do you want? You can write a textbook on such a broad question; how we determine the mass of a galaxy, its composition, its distance, etc. JWST is seeing brand new things; globular clusters are so well documented as to be part of the original Messier catalog that predates the United States.
  - blueflow 2y ago
    The answer is not rocket science. JWST saw something, scientists made an interpretation, there should be an explanation "why" somewhere. And you won't need to write a textbook on that because you can cite prior work.
    - ceejayoz 2y ago
      There is no solid/proven explanation right now. Only hypotheses to be tested. It’s a new phenomenon they’re working to understand.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

stevenrj 2y ago

Assuming that all their light is coming from stars, they have far too much stellar mass (with stellar masses similar to the Milky Way) to be the progenitors of today's globular clusters.

sesm 2y ago
In globular clusters stars tend to have similar age in terms of main sequence progression. If most of the stars approach their brightest phase, the cluster will be extremely bright relative to its mass.
- stevenrj 2y ago
  Such a mass-to-light ratio is accounted for when computing a stellar mass.
  - sesm 2y ago
    I've read the paper, those objects have all properties of AGNs, but since having AGNs so early doesn't fit current mainstream, authors try very hard to come up with a different explanation.