Asteroid will bring celestial treat to Northeast

freep.com

43 points·ytNumbers··7 comments

The news article being, well, a news article, is devoid of information like the actual time and path. Here:

http://occultations.org/regulus2014/

Thank you, although I am now somewhat disappointed that I will not see this where I live.

Is it just me, or is this kind of "science" reporting more annoying than it used to be?

1) 'Space rocks, formally known as asteroids' - actually no, they are informally also known as asteroids. You just made up the term space rocks.

2) 'Only people with telescopes can see most of these “occultations.”' Why is occultations in quotes? It's a real word and that's what these events are called in real life. You know, that science thing again.

3) 'Regulus is what’s known as a first-magnitude star.' No, it actually is a first magnitude star, not just known as one. Again, that's the real term in the real world.

I would ask "science" "reporters" to quit dumbing things down and to start writing like adults.

Science reporting is often bad, and not just recently. Consider that a New York Times editorial chastised Robert Goddard saying that rockets couldn't work because there was nothing to push against. (This is an editorial, not science publication, but there's no reason for the NYT to let an unsigned editorial make outright wrong claims.)

For some of the possible reasons for why it may be getting worse, see http://debunkingdenialism.com/2014/02/16/time-to-get-rid-of-...

Also, if it's this bad with science, consider how bad it might be with everything else.

First I've read

> Asteroid will bring celestial threat to Northeast

and was scared for a bit.

Check the URL.

sneaky

Reply on news.ycombinator.com