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Please help me understand Space.
- Thread starter SlimySnake
- Start date
ForAcademicPurposes
Member
Folks on that second, red, planet about to get their sun eclipsed by the inner planet...
"Time to save MUH FAMILY!!!"
DeafTourette
Perpetually Offended
I'm late to this, I think, but there's no up or down in space. It's so unfathomably HUGE that it doesn't matter.
But yes, there are stars and planets all around us. In every direction, relative to where you are on this planet. And there's no real "floor" to space... Even within a solar system.
ForAcademicPurposes
Member
Join us at triangular Earth. We have a point.
GymWolf
Gold Member
More like 3.
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Trilobit
Member
BlackTron
Member
WhamBamThankYouMaam
Member
Hope this helps, OP.
West Texas CEO
GAF's Nicest Lunch Thief and Nosiest Dildo Archeologist
Why?
Badlucktroll
Gold Member
I remember reading a theory that space is just expanding into nothing, and nothing is forever, so it's just expanding into forever blackness.
Hawking Radiation
Member
Most people don't really question why the orbital plane of the solar system or the disc shape of galaxies exist, why the default perspective of "exiting the solar system" is by flying past Neptune instead of perpendicular to the orbital plane, etc. We also conceptualize our modern understanding of gravity through representing spacetime as a 2d field with depressions in it:Fucking hell OP. Are you having us on?
So I will give him props for paying attention to these things and putting together a model in his head based on it.
Pegasus Actual
Gold Member
A week of playing Kerbal Space Program got me to understand space in a way decades of watching and reading Sci-Fi never could.
BlackTron
Member
That 2D conceptualization of gravity hurts my head. Maybe they should make everyone play Mario Galaxy in science class. There is no up or down, what is up or down "to us" comes from the mass of planets pulling you in, just like how they grab Mario into orbit and exert more pull the closer he gets. Once he runs to the other side of a little planet, a different direction becomes "looking up" to him. He isn't staring towards "the top" of space on one side and "the bottom" from the other. The points of reference come from the things in space acting on each other. If you put a ball in a gym, you can say where it is in reference to the room, and it's always pulled towards the floor. In space the only thing to pull on it or create a reference point is another ball. When the balls start rotating around each other from their pull, it creates a 2D plane. This 2D plane is the drawing of the solar system we all saw growing up that planted the "2D" idea.
If you play Galaxy and do a real good long jump, you can find Mario in a nigh endless orbit around the planet, with enough hangtime and velocity to stay in the air, but without enough gravity to pull him down. This is what the earth is doing around the sun, attracted by gravity and spinning around it (nigh) endlessly. Mario's trajectory around the planet creates a 2D plane in relation to it, but you could have done the same jump while facing 45 degrees in the other direction and the 2D plane would be on a different axis. The analogy being -it all comes from the interaction of objects between each other and nothing else.
If you play Galaxy and do a real good long jump, you can find Mario in a nigh endless orbit around the planet, with enough hangtime and velocity to stay in the air, but without enough gravity to pull him down. This is what the earth is doing around the sun, attracted by gravity and spinning around it (nigh) endlessly. Mario's trajectory around the planet creates a 2D plane in relation to it, but you could have done the same jump while facing 45 degrees in the other direction and the 2D plane would be on a different axis. The analogy being -it all comes from the interaction of objects between each other and nothing else.
Hookshot
Gold Member
Wonder what will be easier in the future? Making sure every ship leaves in a similar orientation or just sticking 100 air locks all over them, because meeting another ship when it's a 3d space and you've left from the other side of the planet so are upside down and horizontal and it is vertical, will a nightmare for pilots and an easy way to crash and kill everyone on both ships.
Insane Metal
Member
That is freaking awesome. And the star's mass is identical to that of the Sun's. Awesome too
There is a military version called "Children of a Dead Sun" or something like that and it's Kerbal meets lasers and railguns
ForAcademicPurposes
Member
You know what would be awesome but also terrifying?
If a Dyson Sphere were discovered in middle of bum fuck nowhere in space.
Hawking Radiation
Member
Most people don't really question why the orbital plane of the solar system or the disc shape of galaxies exist, why the default perspective of "exiting the solar system" is by flying past Neptune instead of perpendicular to the orbital plane, etc. We also conceptualize our modern understanding of gravity through representing spacetime as a 2d field with depressions in it:
So I will give him props for paying attention to these things and putting together a model in his head based on it.
Not meaning to be a dick but that's a 2 second google search of which is the below result. I was initially thinking maybe the magnetic field of our galaxy but apparently that's weak AF.
Why is our galaxy disk shaped?
Galaxy formation is a highly active area of research, but the basic idea is that disks form because a clump of gas with some initial rotation will have collisions which cancel out off-axis angular momentum flattening the clump. This also explains why our solar system is flat too.1 Mar 2019
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Pegasus Actual
Gold Member
Dead Earth apparently, yeah looks pretty cool. Name makes it sound like a prequel to Sins of a Solar Empire... which is another game I've always wanted to dive deep on but just seems like such a huge time commitment. Anyway, wishlisted Children of a Dead Earth for next time it hits that 90% Steam discount.There is a military version called "Children of a Dead Sun" or something like that and it's Kerbal meets lasers and railguns
I assume it doesn't have the whole 'making it from the surface to orbit' thing that KSP has though. Independently figuring out the Hohmann transfer orbit and eventually landing on Duna with my atrophied Physics 101 knowledge was immensely satisfying... not to mention the entertainment of the countless failed launches along the way.
It's been a while since I've played it but it was a DEEP dive into the creators theory of space combat with diamond plated wedge shaped ships being the optimal form for combat. It has a full newtonian physics movement system so most of my fights were "hit thrust...crap over shot, try to spin, wait incoming fire...I'm dead...." type stuff
Hookshot
Gold Member
Wasn’t there potential a Dyson swarm somewhere? Tabby’s star or something.
ForAcademicPurposes
Member
Should point James Webb telescope at that thing and see what's what.
Pegasus Actual
Gold Member
Prompted a random thought, most space games I've played in my life have worse physics than Asteroids:It's been a while since I've played it but it was a DEEP dive into the creators theory of space combat with diamond plated wedge shaped ships being the optimal form for combat. It has a full newtonian physics movement system so most of my fights were "hit thrust...crap over shot, try to spin, wait incoming fire...I'm dead...." type stuff
West Texas CEO
GAF's Nicest Lunch Thief and Nosiest Dildo Archeologist
Is 4D space such a thing?