this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2024
430 points (98.9% liked)

Science Memes

11021 readers
4759 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
top 11 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Skua@kbin.earth 24 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I know this is absolutely not the point of this, but for some reason this prompted me to try to get a sense of the resolution the JWST is providing here. Here is the original image without our infinite otter overlord. It's a small part of NGC 3324, which looks like this. If you look at the right hand side of that photo, about in the centre vertically, you'll see the section that the post's image shows. It's rotated 90 degrees between the zoomed in and zoomed out images.

NGC 3324 has an apparent dimension of 11 arc minutes, or 0.183 degrees. So if you imagine a ball that's 10cm across and another one that's 20cm across but twice as far away, they'll have the same apparent dimension. If you imagine a triangle drawn between the observer and the two outside points of the subject, the apparent dimension is the angle of the corner of the triangle at the observer.

So if imagine holding an object at arm's length, say 0.8 m away, how big would that object have to be to have an apparent dimension of 11 arcminutes? About 5 mm. The entire photo - the zoomed out one - is the equivalent of holding a grain of rice at arm's length. And then we get this zoomed in one still showing crazy detail on just a tiny fraction of that

[–] MeatPilot@lemmy.world 14 points 3 days ago (1 children)

That was very informative, space nerd.

[–] Skua@kbin.earth 8 points 3 days ago (1 children)

space nerd is a title i shall wear with pride

[–] MeatPilot@lemmy.world 6 points 3 days ago

You absolutely should! I'm just a space hobbyist or a space peasant by comparison.

[–] Hobbes_Dent@lemmy.world 22 points 3 days ago

Otter space.

[–] IndiBrony@lemmy.world 6 points 3 days ago

See you on the otter side 👌

[–] Hossenfeffer@feddit.uk 4 points 3 days ago

Why, I otter...!

[–] Zorsith@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 3 days ago

I for one welcome our eldritch space otter overlords.

[–] NoIWontPickAName@kbin.earth 2 points 3 days ago

We found the quinlans!!!

[–] Bishma@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 3 days ago

Sad story. The poor otter heard about the Crab Nebula and went for a feast. But it got as far as Eagle, and realized it made a terrible mistake. All the crabs are back home!

[–] NoIWontPickAName@kbin.earth 0 points 3 days ago

We found the quinlans!!!