Does the galaxy need weight watchers?

I found a article on Fox news about the recent discovery that our galaxy, the Milky Way, is significantly larger then scientists had previously though. While I find this quite interesting I was disappointed by one small part of the article:

“Scientists mapped the Milky Way in a more detailed, three-dimensional way and found that it’s 15 percent larger in breadth. More important, it’s denser, with 50 percent more mass, which is like weight.” Emphasis mine.

Like weight? Really? Now I know this may be nit-picking and is a small distinction but as anyone who has taken a basic high school science class knows, mass and weight are not the same thing. I understand that they are similar, and the units of measurement have the same names, but there is a major difference.  The point of journalism is to educate the populace, not misinform them. All it would take is a few more words, to not only give an accurate description of this amazing discovery but, to potentially enlighten a few people as to the difference between mass and weight.

”… mass, which is the amount of material in an object.”

Four more words, that’s all it would take. And I doubt anyone who can’t understand that would be reading an article on this subject.

Or, maybe our galaxy just needs to hit the gym.

Tags: Fox News, Milky Way, Stupid, Weight Watchers

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 6th, 2009 at 7:35 pm and is filed under Media, Science. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.