craigiest

craigiest t1_j4004ua wrote

As I understand it, coastlines are basically fractal in nature over many orders of magnitude, so no, it shouldn't. Shrinking or enlarging details beyond the resolution could also result in smoothing. So it really matters what the data and display resolutions are and how they interact. A Mercator projection could be enlarging polar regions beyond the data resolution or compressing equatorial regions beyond the display resolution or both resulting in different domains of smoothing.

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craigiest t1_ivy9i9y wrote

This isn’t true. In this NASA account of NASA history they call it an accident, an explosion, and a “fiery crash.” “Major malfunction” is just the phrase the announcer used when it became apparent that something had gone wrong. Besides, this is a news article. There would be no obligation that the writer hew to technical language even if NASA did. This isn’t a technical report.

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