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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
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
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
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.
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
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
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
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?
Pejo
Member
Didn't want to make a new thread for 2 images, and this was the most recent space "catch all" thread, so here...
Images from the NASA Juno spacecraft. This is Jupiter and its ammonia clouds. Truly a gas giant. I can't even imagine the unescapable hell it would be, to be "on" that planet.
Images from the NASA Juno spacecraft. This is Jupiter and its ammonia clouds. Truly a gas giant. I can't even imagine the unescapable hell it would be, to be "on" that planet.
FunkMiller
Member
This is an excellent channel for blowing your tiny fucking mind:
Don’t know if Americans have access to BBC iplayer but they currently have a series about the Solar System running. There was an interesting episode about what’s beyond Neptune. Including the Oort Cloud where comets come from. People in their 30 or 40s might have seen 6 or 7 just with the naked eye which considering the distances traveled is a rather high amount considering we can’t see how they are getting forced towards the sun
I love the nemesis theory that there is a big planet out there that periodically crosses the oort cloud and sends stuff towards the sun.
SlimySnake
Flashless at the Golden Globes
I thought it was crazy that the big storm on jupiter that showed up 300-400 years ago is actually the size of earth. its insane how massive this planet really is.Didn't want to make a new thread for 2 images, and this was the most recent space "catch all" thread, so here...
Images from the NASA Juno spacecraft. This is Jupiter and its ammonia clouds. Truly a gas giant. I can't even imagine the unescapable hell it would be, to be "on" that planet.
i didnt know this thread was being bumped all this time. somehow missed all the bumps, but i had another stupid thought. if Jupiter is full of hydrogen and helium, what happens if some idiot on earth decides to bomb it. would it ignite and simply disappear? thankfully, i googled it and apparently you need oxygen to ignite the hydrogen or something.
Yeah, hydrogen can ignite by chemically reacting with oxygen.
2H2 + O2 = 2H2O + energy
Releases water.
Jupiter is mostly hydrogen and helium, like the Sun, so it can’t chemically ignite, and it doesn’t have enough mass for nuclear ignition.
It's as good a theory as any other. Lots of dwarf planets out there so a big one might be hiding further out. I knew Pluto's "moon" Charon was large compared to Pluto but until watching the episode I didn't know that they are tidally locked showing each other the same side constantly. The gravity point they orbit is between the two of them.
D
Deleted member 1159
Unconfirmed Member
Christ the gas giants are both beautiful and scary as hell. The hexagonal storm on Saturn’s North Pole is both fascinating and makes me think what the fuck.Didn't want to make a new thread for 2 images, and this was the most recent space "catch all" thread, so here...
Images from the NASA Juno spacecraft. This is Jupiter and its ammonia clouds. Truly a gas giant. I can't even imagine the unescapable hell it would be, to be "on" that planet.
And space can only really be understood by us mathematically for the most part. Yes we like to see it and it’s beautiful, but to comprehend it when we’re so infinitesimally small, I think it’s only understandable from our perspective of being little blips on the cosmic scale expressed in numbers.
And maybe the most interesting subject is other intelligent life out there. Just going by the odds, there has to be someone out there, and they probably don’t look like Cardassians or Klingons…man I wish I could be alive when we might actually meet an extraterrestrial
Reizo Ryuu
Member
Nothing, yes hydrogen and oxygen chemically react, but you'd need an absurd amount of oxygen to ignite jupiter, exponentially more than earth has in it's atmosphere; basically there's no chance of jupiter bursting into flames unless it somehow finds itself falling into the sun.
sono
Gold Member
No.
But the reason that solar systems and galaxies are considered relatively flat is to do with angular momentum
Does this help
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While our moon is tidally locked to us, at least it still moves around. Imagine if it stayed in the same place all the time, such that half of the world would have NEVER SEEN IT outside of drawings and photographs! Obviously the lack of an orbiting moon would probably have prevented life forming on earth as we know it, but just think of the Flat Earth Society trying to explain it
Orbital mechanics like that make me wonder if there is any effort to interrogate the la grange points of various bodies. Anything "interesting" you wanted to park in the solar system long term could be put in one of those. Though maybe they get so cluttered with space trash its actually more dangerous there because of the risk of hitting something else trapped in one.
Well, google tells me NASA is already on it!
Lucy Begins Its Travels to the Fossil Asteroids of Jupiter
Time capsules from the birth of our solar system more than 4 billion years ago, the swarms of Trojan asteroids associated with Jupiter are thought to be remnants of the primordial material that formed the outer planets. The Trojans orbit the Sun in two loose groups, with one group leading ahead...
www.lpi.usra.edu
Maybe there's some sort of laser tech that could beam between two constantly facing surfaces but yeah our planet not spinning at a different speed to the moon would have messed with plate tectonics and probably the magnetosphere. Mars has crap moons, Phobos is pretty much just compacted dust and heading towards Mars so it'll get ripped apart and leave a faint ring one day.While our moon is tidally locked to us, at least it still moves around. Imagine if it stayed in the same place all the time, such that half of the world would have NEVER SEEN IT outside of drawings and photographs! Obviously the lack of an orbiting moon would probably have prevented life forming on earth as we know it, but just think of the Flat Earth Society trying to explain it
Orbital mechanics like that make me wonder if there is any effort to interrogate the la grange points of various bodies. Anything "interesting" you wanted to park in the solar system long term could be put in one of those. Though maybe they get so cluttered with space trash its actually more dangerous there because of the risk of hitting something else trapped in one.
Well, google tells me NASA is already on it!
Lucy Begins Its Travels to the Fossil Asteroids of Jupiter
Time capsules from the birth of our solar system more than 4 billion years ago, the swarms of Trojan asteroids associated with Jupiter are thought to be remnants of the primordial material that formed the outer planets. The Trojans orbit the Sun in two loose groups, with one group leading ahead...
Bit crazy to go to 8 asteroids in one trip.
ForAcademicPurposes
Member
Do they teach space shit in school these days? Genuine question.
SlimySnake
Flashless at the Golden Globes
i dont remember anything i learned in college, let alone school. its been decades.
Also, professors and school teachers are really bad at explaining this stuff. I am a visual person and I needed these animations ive been watching on youtube shorts to fully grasp einstein's theory of relativity. There are some good ones on youtube who do experiments to explain some of these basic laws of motion, but i was stuck with professors with bad eastern european accents who used slides instead of experiments, never made eye contact, and made it clear that they would rather be working on their research than actually teach students. I hate tiktok but youtube shorts feeds have reignited my love for space, black holes and quantum physics.
there is also a possibility i was day dreaming through out school and college.
calistan
Member
I read a cool thing once about the atmospheric pressure in Jupiter being so high that once you go deep enough into it, the hydrogen becomes metallic, i.e. it forms an electrically conductive liquid.
E-Cat
Member
If you were on that space ship at the peak of the gravitational slingshot acceleration, would you literally feel the G-force, or would it be so gradual as to be imperceptible?
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