this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2025
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Science Memes

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[–] mrmacduggan@lemmy.ml 78 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Hey buddy, they admitted they didn't know what the star even was.

[–] kayzeekayzee@lemmy.blahaj.zone 25 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Huh for some reason I'd never considered that fact that the songwriter would have no idea what a star consisted of. Just a mysterious light in the sky.

Interesting, I think of the lyrics as describing the way a baby or toddler feels when looking at the stars. They don’t know what those bright lights are yet, they just know they’re shiny and too high up to reach.

[–] KSPAtlas@sopuli.xyz 8 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Apparently the sun's spectral absorption lines were discovered 4 years before the song was made

[–] psud@aussie.zone 2 points 1 day ago

I don't expect children's song writers have ever been sufficiently into science that they know about new discoveries that don't matter to them at all quickly. I doubt many people knew even the top five elements that the sun consists of

I think it's fair for them to wonder what a far away star was. They probably didn't even know that the sun was a star

[–] lobut@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 days ago

Literally the next line.

They thought it was made of carbon.