From: nuny@bid.nes   
      
     I was reading up on how sensors work in various SF setting- their   
   capabilities and limitations have been argued in many places already, frinst   
   in the never-ending Star Trek/Star Wars "who would win" scenarios.   
      
     There are many examples of "impossible" sensor techs like determining that   
   there's somebody not only alive, but ill, on a ship thousands of km away, but   
   I was thinking more about less unreasonable things like what a star or planet   
   might look like from    
   near-astronomical ranges- "There's a G-type planet in that system". "Put it on   
   the main viewer" and you see a pretty planet with clouds and forests and   
   whatnot which seems physically unreasonable in either SW or ST  but we go with   
   it anyway for the story'   
   s sake.   
      
     Seldom do real-world sensor technologies get mentioned in such comparative   
   arguments except as generic examples like radar and such, but I just found   
   this:   
      
   http://www.space.com/32817-starspots-mapped-on-old-star-reveal-m   
   gnetic-weirdness.html   
      
     that points up the differences between spots on the Sun and spots on a star   
   15x Sol's radius *180 light years away*.   
      
     I was floored. Maybe I just haven't been keeping up, but today we can image   
   spots on other stars! Okay, the resolution is poor, but still!   
      
     What else have I missed? How unreasonable *are* the sensor techs in SF? How   
   much of my suspended disbelief effort is unnecessary?   
      
      
     Mark L. Fergerson   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)