Portal talk:Star/Did you know

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Facts?[edit]

  • Did you know that stars cannot be seen (directly from our eyes) in space!
  • Did you know that Sun is always losing weight? Scientists have worked out that it loses around 4 million tons every second. This is the amount of hydrogen gas that the Sun turns into energy every second.
  • Did you know that it would take 900 million years of travel by foot to reach the second nearest star, Proxima Centauri?
— First draft's statements
  • What does that first one mean? It doesn't make grammatical sense.
  • The second one should be in METRIC/SI units.
  • I take it you used 5km/hr for the speed of the walk, for the third one? If you were to run 10m/s like Usain Bolt, the entire way, it'd take only 126 million years.

65.94.252.195 (talk) 06:09, 7 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sources[edit]

The sources for the facts are:

1. (First fact) First source, Second source and the Third Source

2. (Second fact) First and only source (and its first fact)

3. (Third fact) First Source and the Second Source (and its second fact)

4. (Fourth fact) First and only source (and its seventh section) --Extra999 (Contact me + contribs) 06:28, 22 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

that our eyes cannot see stars in space because of the relatively lower magnitude of other stars!
Your third source for the first fact categorically contradicts the statement you cannot see stars in space.
And the "relative magnitude" statement still makes no sense ... how can you not see stars if you cannot see them because other stars are brighter? That means you still see bright stars! 76.66.194.32 (talk) 04:53, 23 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well I could say the answer is "blindingly obvious", but that would be an awful pun. So... none of the sources for the first item confirm the statement. Two of the sources are public forums and therefore are dubious. The third source categorically contradicts it. I think this statement is confusing the effect of camera exposure time with the abilities of astronauts to view the stars. Yes the camera will not show the stars if it is set to a short exposure time because of a saturating light source in the field (such as the Earth). However, the astronauts can see the stars merely by turning away from bright light sources and letting their eyes get dark adapted. Thus the statement is false.—RJH (talk) 15:31, 23 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]