How do we get accurate and precise data from Earth? IF we use doppler shifting to detect movement of stars, how can it be precise if we are in motion. reporting the accurate movement of something would be difficult with the observer in motion also. I mean if we need precise measurement, ANY movement by the observer will create a shift in wavelength if we measure accurately enough. the other item is IF we measure electromagnetic waves, won't Earth's Megnetic field (which is in constant flux) alter the waves that we are trying to measure? Or the atmosphere also alter what were trying to detect. The better the instrument becomes the more the effects are noticed. Even the steadiest hand can't take a crisp clear picture from a fully zoomed 500x digital camera.
I mean it seems to me like we are trying to precisely analyze the exact physics of a floating balloon from a small boat on the ocean. Even the Hubble or sattelites are in motion. Well, I can see how we can account for everything we know. How about the Magnetic field of Earth and other planets? I see how solar flares can affect our magnetic field And radio and other electro magnetic waves. Couldn't a giant flare from any star blow through the path of the waves were looking at and cause fluctuatuations? The distance were talking is great. And to assume a flux in any data we get has to be observed at least for years or decade to assume that its not just being affected by something between us.
See my point is outside of Mars it takes 10+ years for the planet to rotate around the sun. How do we know or can calculate by only 5-10 years of wobble observation when some planets may barely have completed 1/5th of their orbit. I just think there's too many variable yet to say this star has x planets. In out strongest telescopes radio and other spectrum, the stars are still just a pinpoint and anything between could shift the spectrum. According to the heretical physics on the website below, it is shown that the electromagnetic spectra we view from stars did not get here as light. Once you have read it, you will understand how light can appear to have arrived at Earth from stars too far away for their probable magnitude to have expressed enough energy to be perceived in our solar system with our simplistic instruments.
A week ago, I saw a horribly garbled photo of Pluto recently taken by the Hubble - its best attempt to date shows a blob of varying shades of gray, BUT, a medium-sized star seven hundred thousand light years away shows up clear enough for us to gather a very finite spectral signature. Its dumb, and ridiculous to even imagine light comes from stars to our solar system as light, but that is what we have thought for Six Thousand years, so it must be correct. My opinion is, until this heretical physics was presented last year, we had no alternative explanation, so we went with the status quo: starlight has got to be starlight - put on the blinders and cite Occam's Razor.
The answer to your question is that we should eventually be able to detect wobble in more distant stars, which is the main future of astronomy. Our mathematical models for the universe will eventually adjust for the heretical physics you are about to read. Well, we know what the motion of the Earth is. On it's surface, at a max of 1000mph as we rotate, we know we're also moving 18.5 miles a second around the sun, and we know the sun is moving about 38 miles a second as we orbit the center of the Milkyway.
But, that's enough accuracy -- if we assume the Milkyway is at rest, and all the *other* objects are moving with respect to it (and there's no reason why we can't do that), we can obtain a very precise record of speeds of those other objects.
Likewise, for stars and clusters inside the Milkyway, we can assume the sun is at rest, and knowing our speed around the sun, we can again come up with very precise measurements.
Now, launch an instruement into orbit, and you eliminate the atmospheric effects. (Note the clarity of the Hubble and Chandra images.) These motions are accounted for.
Say we are looking at a star that is moving away from us. It would have a red shift in the absorption lines of its spectrum.
Now we notice that over a period of time, the red shift decreases, then increases, then decreases at a unique period (not related to earths rotation or orbital period). This tells us the star either orbiting another star or body, or that it is being orbited. I understand your question Glen and I've wondered the same thing myself. Think about the fact that the Hubble Telescope is moving at 17,0000 plus mph and then it really gets confusing. Spheres in spherical arcs intersecting at angles.
Ahhh! it's enough to give you a headache. I've learned recently that celestial mechanics is sometimes more a matter for geometry and numbers than it is an astronomer looking through a telescope.
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