stars & sharks

Comments

• essteeyou@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Polaris is 45-67 million years old.

  The oldest total-group chondrichthyans, known as acanthodians or “spiny sharks”, appeared during the Early Silurian, around 439 million years ago.

  It’s not even close.

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  • ChicoSuave@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Dinosaurs died off 65 MYA. Dinosaurs were most likely gone before Polaris formed.

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    • i_stole_ur_taco@lemmy.ca ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      They probably died off because they couldn’t use Polaris for navigation!

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    • aeronmelon@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I’m now sad that dinosaurs could never look up and see Polaris.

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  • toynbee@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I came here to question whether that claim is true, saw your post, and thought something like “well, that settles that.” Then I scrolled down and saw neatchee’s (great username) post and now my whole world is uncertain.

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  • LustyArgonianMana@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Appalachian mountains are even older

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• neatchee@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  This is only sort of true, unfortunately. Polaris is a two-star system: Polaris Aa and Polaris B.

  Polaris B is much older than sharks, by several billion years.

  Polaris Aa appears to be younger than sharks, at a measley 50 million years old, compared to sharks’ 420 million years

  HOWEVER it is unclear whether Polaris Aa is actually that young. Scientists believe that, based on some contradictory findings, that measurement may be inaccurate if Polaris Aa is formed from two different stars that merged. In that scenario, the model we use to calculate star age would no longer work and could give wildly inaccurate estimates of the star’s true age

  TMYK

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  • homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Right but how did it know to be the pole star?? Huh?

    Yeah! Makes ya think!

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  • davidgro@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    In my opinion Polaris B and Polaris Ab (it’s actually a three star system!) don’t count as ‘The North Star’ because they contribute almost nothing to the visible light seen without a telescope. Without Aa there’s just no north pole star at the moment.

    But that’s interesting about the age being uncertain. I’d use the age of the merger as the age of the star anyway unless it didn’t add much mass (but in that case it would have been a short lived giant anyway…) which would still likely put it under the 420 million years mark.

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    • neatchee@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Fair enough on the first point!

      The interesting scenario re: Polaris A’s age would be if a larger, younger original star merged with a smaller, much older star. You’d have a small amount of late-stage byproducts in an otherwise early-stage star. That would definitely make any age models ‘confused’ heh

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• SadSadSatellite@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Sharks are older than trees.

  They’re older than a lot of things. Land plants, Yellowstone, appendages,dinosaurs, doritos.

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  • Annoyed_Crabby@monyet.cc ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Sharks are older than trees.

    But are younger than the mountains.

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    • Buttermilk@lemmy.ml ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Yellowstone

      Well…

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    • Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Ehhhh they’re younger than some mountains though. There are ranges that are over a billion years old, but the Himalayas are “only” some 50-70 million years old.

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    • Lemjukes@lemm.ee ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Why did I read this to the tune of colors of the wind…

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    • MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Some of it.

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  • desktop_user@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I refuse to believe any animal is older than doritos

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    • BaroqueInMind@lemmy.one ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      No they are wrong. Doritos are eternal.

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  • Maturin@hexbear.net ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    What do you think the first several hundreds of millions of years were like before they had Doritos?

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  • blockheadjt@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Appendages? Like, fins?

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    • TheOctonaut@mander.xyz ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      He’s thinking of penguins

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    • Klear@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Like appendix I imagine.

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• akilou@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  One of my favorites is “the Appalachian mountains are older than bones”

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  • rockerface@lemm.ee ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    …wait

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    • bss03@infosec.pub ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Bones evolved for the first time: “485 Ma First vertebrates with true bones (jawless fishes)” – en.wikipedia.org/…/Timeline_of_the_evolutionary_h… (Vertebrates existed without a bony notochord before then.)

      But the Appalachians were started much earlier: “The geologic processes that led to the formation of the Appalachian Mountains started 1.1 billion years ago.” They were basically finished growing by the time bones existed: “Around 480 million years ago, geologic processes began that led to three distinct orogenic eras that created much of the surface structure seen in today’s Appalachians. [d] During this period, mountains once reached elevations similar to those of the Alps and the Rockies” Since then, it’s just been wearing down. – en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachian_Mountains

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  • yourNewFavouriteUser@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    and bones are I turn older than Saturn’s rings, by about 300 million years

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• falsemirror@beehaw.org ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Unfortunately (or fortunately?) this appears to be untrue.

  Polaris is a cluster of stars formed about 2 billion years ago. Sharks originated about 450 million years ago.

  One star of Polaris (Aa) appears to be 50 million years old, but it seems likely due to a collision of stars which added mass to it.

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  • nichtburningturtle@feddit.org ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    So it’s technically not wrong.

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    • WrenMala8@pawb.social ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      And yet, technically wrong

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  • mexicancartel@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    But polaris Aa is the only visible star with naked eye. So that can be called formation of star?

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• 10_0@lemmy.ml ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  See how did sharks swim north without the north being there?

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  • tetris11@lemmy.ml ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Much of Earth’s water is older than the Sun so the shark’s likely swam from space is my best guess.

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    • LarmyOfLone@lemm.ee ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I mean the protons and neutrons are never new, all of this stuff is just second hand recycled garbage!

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  • Dicska@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Nah, they just swam East/West or South. At one point they just collected into a pile at the South Pole and waited patiently for the Polaris to come into existence.

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• woodenghost@hexbear.net ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I just checked, Polaris is about ten times younger than sharks. The other two stars of it’s ternary star system are older, but not visible to the naked eye, so early sharks would not have been able to use them for purposes of navigation.

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• umbrella@lemmy.ml ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  this blows my mind

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• chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Thanks for this. Now I’m on a major Wikipedia deep dive on Polaris and cepheid variables!

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• rockerface@lemm.ee ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Thanks, I hate it

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  • pingveno@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Now wait until you hear about skinteeth.

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• FuckyWucky@hexbear.net ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  holu shit polaris is super young sicko-zoomer

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