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  #1 (permalink)  
Old 21-May-2009, 10:02 PM
Plutocrat Plutocrat is offline
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Default Bad Astronomy in Astronomy Magazine
Page 44 of the June 2009 Astronomy has a big map of Mars that completely misidentifies Olympus Mons, the planet's tallest mountain!

In fact, what the label "Olympus Mons" points to is Elysium Mons, the fourth tallest mountain on Mars, which is located more than 150 degrees in longitude away from the actual Olympus Mons.

It's kind of like confusing Greenland and England.

Astronomy is the same magazine that told us a couple years ago that the Moon doesn't rotate....
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Old 22-May-2009, 03:14 AM
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No harm Plutocrat, but I think this is a better spot for this. Nice find.
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Old 23-May-2009, 05:39 AM
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I'm glad I cancelled my subscription a few years ago. I don't suppose you can post a scan?
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Old 23-May-2009, 09:48 PM
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I like Astronomy magazine. Even a good publication makes has mistakes occasionally.

Plutocrat, you should write to the editor and report the error. I'm sure they'll publish a correction in the next issue.
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Old 24-May-2009, 10:04 PM
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'twouldn't do any good....

Several years ago, Plutocrat pointed out errors in the often unreliable "Ask Astro" column. An editor wrote and admitted the magazine's errors.

But no correction ever appeared in the magazine.

Sky & Telescope is the same way.
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Old 05-September-2009, 02:32 PM
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Well, page 12 of the September issue of Astronomy corrects the error about Olympus Mons. (In contrast, Sky & Telescope has yet to correct its Saturn error.)

That's the good news. The bad news: the same issue of Astronomy has other errors:

Page 22:

Quote:
VB 10 is the smallest star known to host a planet.
VB 10--better known as Van Biesbroeck's Star--is a red dwarf. It is much bigger than PSR B1257+12, a star known to host three planets.

Page 49:

Quote:
Cepheids take their name from the constellation Cepheus, where astronomers discovered the first example of this new class of variable stars, Delta Cephei.
No, Delta Cephei was Cepheid number two. The first was Eta Aquilae.

And page 55 contains the peculiar statement

Quote:
Sirius B takes roughly 50 years to orbit Sirius A.
According to Jay Holberg's recent book on Sirius, the orbital period is 50.075 +/- 0.103 years. By what strange stretching of the English language is 50 only roughly equal to the true period?
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Old 05-September-2009, 06:48 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Plutocrat View Post
According to Jay Holberg's recent book on Sirius, the orbital period is 50.075 +/- 0.103 years. By what strange stretching of the English language is 50 only roughly equal to the true period?
I'll defend that. It isn't exact. It's very close to fifty years, but it isn't exactly fifty years. "Roughly" is the term I'd use, too, or "about."
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Old 05-September-2009, 07:02 PM
peteshimmon peteshimmon is offline
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Oh come on! Nothing is 100% in life! We all
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Old 07-September-2009, 10:28 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Plutocrat View Post
Well, page 12 of the September issue of Astronomy corrects the error about Olympus Mons. (In contrast, Sky & Telescope has yet to correct its Saturn error.)

That's the good news. The bad news: the same issue of Astronomy has other errors:

Page 22:



VB 10--better known as Van Biesbroeck's Star--is a red dwarf. It is much bigger than PSR B1257+12, a star known to host three planets.

Page 49:



No, Delta Cephei was Cepheid number two. The first was Eta Aquilae.

And page 55 contains the peculiar statement



According to Jay Holberg's recent book on Sirius, the orbital period is 50.075 +/- 0.103 years. By what strange stretching of the English language is 50 only roughly equal to the true period?

p.22 is an understandable one though--PSR.... is certainly more massive than VB10. And isn't the planet around PSRxxxx more like a "dwarf planet"?
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Old 07-September-2009, 10:30 PM
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ok, I checked the link--two of them are legit planets.
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Old 17-November-2009, 12:49 PM
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