Times Examiner Facebook Logo

Friday, February 7, 2025 - 07:17 AM

INDEPENDENT CONSERVATIVE VOICE OF UPSTATE SOUTH CAROLINA FOR 30+ YRS

First Published & Printed in 1994

INDEPENDENT CONSERVATIVE VOICE OF
UPSTATE SOUTH CAROLINA FOR OVER 30 YEARS!

Since 2009, protoplanetary disks have reportedly been observed in the Orion Nebula, 7,500 light years from Earth. But are these genuine observations or merely astronomers' interpretations supporting their theories on planet and star formation?

An alleged direct image of a solar system being born in the Orion Nebula

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope

The disc, unimaginatively named 181-825, is considered a direct image of a planetary system's birth. It spans 53 billion miles, making it 7.5 times the diameter of our solar system.

The image of the disc is 1280 pixels wide, while the disc itself is 816 pixels across. This makes each pixel represent 65 million miles. In comparison, Jupiter's diameter is 88,846 miles, which is just 1/731 of a pixel. To make Jupiter visible, the image would need to be 935,746 x 935,746 pixels. Even the largest exoplanets, about twice the size of Jupiter, remain undetectable in such an image.

Even further if you look at this image, it does not really look like a disc at all but more like a shockwave. It looks more like what you would get if the star were moving through the Orion nebula creating a shockwave as it did so. This interpretation is supported by the fact that it is not symmetrical along the Y-axis of the image. Furthermore, there are bright spots near the shorter end as would be expected from such a wave.

This model is further supported by other images that show evidence of stars going through the nebula rather than forming actual discs. Yet these are still labeled as protoplanetary discs. This shows a clear bias in the direction of them being protoplanetary discs because evidence of them being shockwaves is abundantly clear. Interestingly enough, those that looked the most like discs are seen from the side and could be shockwaves.

The claim that these are images of protoplanetary discs represents presupposition and expectations rather than what is actually there. These structures look enough like shockwaves it would at least cause the possibility to be considered.  This shows a lack of objectivity in the analysis of these images.