"[T]he fixed stars... are the visible Armies of God"
May 18, 2016 5:32 AM   Subscribe

Christopher M. Graney on the problem of what to do in 1629 if you're a Copernican and the data suggests that most stars are larger than the span of Earth's orbit.

[From the blog of the Vatican Observatory — previously]
posted by metaquarry (4 comments total) 18 users marked this as a favorite
 
A few stars are indeed that giant, but sun-sized stars are much more common, and the most common are stars smaller than the sun (the vast majority of stars are thought to be feeble little red dwarfs that put out but a small fraction of the sun’s light). Brahe, who thought giant stars were absurd, would no doubt be very satisfied to know this.

Yeah, they might be "feeble," but I bet even the notably-pugnacious Brahe would thing twice before taking one on in a fight....
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:56 AM on May 18, 2016 [2 favorites]


To a person with excellent vision, stars appear as small, round dots of differing apparent sizes, or magnitudes. Magnitude means bigness.

Huh, I never thought about that. Reading it now it still seems hard to believe. Stars are point sources of light, of course they are! But that's a modern view. (See also: List of stars with resolved images.)
posted by Nelson at 8:56 AM on May 18, 2016 [2 favorites]


"Visible Armies of God" is Latin for "Holy shit, bud, the universe is huge!"
posted by clawsoon at 9:59 AM on May 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


"O Lord, ooh, You are so big, so absolutely huge. Gosh, we're all really impressed down here, I can tell you. Forgive us, O Lord, for this, our dreadful toadying and bare-faced flattery, but You are so strong, and, well, just so super fantastic. Amen."
posted by headnsouth at 10:39 AM on May 18, 2016


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