1547: "Solar System Questions"

[Dr What]

title="My country's World Cup win was exciting and all, but c'mon, what if the players wore nylon wings and COULD LITERALLY FLY?"

[cellocgw]

Well, gosh... Randall should know to submit all these questions to Phil Plait .

I guess my additions to the list would be:

How come Earth's got such a highly radioactive core? Do or did all the other "solid" planets?
Some crazy guy suggested null-buoyancy blimps for living in Venus' atmosphere. Why couldn't we do this on Jupiter as well?
Where's the chrono-synclastic infandibulum headed these days?

[Echo244]

Tsk. The deal with Miranda is that some sort of mood-altering gas got introduced to the atmosphere processors to make the population more docile, only 90% of them lay down and died while the other 10% went crazy and started eating and murdering people. In that order.

<Puts on brown coat, runs away>

(And yeah, I'd love to know the real answers to all these questions too)

[orthogon]

I've never really understood what the deal is with Miranda either.

Pseudo-edit: Echo244 may be making the same joke as me, it's hard to be sure...

[Mokurai]

On flying with strap-on wings, in an air storage cave on the moon: The Menace from Earth, by Robert A. Heinlein.

Moon Olympics: The Last Theorem, by Arthur Clarke and Fred Pohl.

There was a story including a nude Olympic hundred-meter dash in vacuum on the moon, but I don' t remember the name of the story or the author, and Google isn't helping me on this.

There was also a tale about baseball in a double dome on Mars long ago, where somebody hit a home run that broke through the inner dome and landed between the domes.

In what most of us are pleased to call real life (while some are of course angry about it), there is the 300 Degree Club at the Scott-Amundsen South Pole Research Station where they have the big Ice Cube neutrino telescope. When it gets to a hundred below in the winter, they crank the sauna up to 200. Sit in there naked until you are thoroughly toasty, or rather steamed through, and then head out the door wearing only running shoes, and around the nearby South Pole marker and back in.

[roostyscoot]

I made an account because i read a while back a hypothesized answer for Question 2 and i wanted to know if anyone else heard it.

All the blotches are on the near side, according to my vaguely remembered source, because earth briefly had 2 moons, and the smaller one collided with the near one. tidal forces then did something and helped align the moon the way it is today.

i'm looking frantically for my source, i'll edit when i find it! i hope someone else also heard this!

[Mokurai]

Some crazy guy suggested null-buoyancy blimps for living in Venus' atmosphere. Why couldn't we do this on Jupiter as well?

Saturn is better. The gravity is about 1 earth G at the cloud tops. See Saturn Rukh, by Robert Forward. As a base for collecting a particular form of Unobtainium, they hang their spaceship from a giant helium balloon, which unfortunately gets [spoilers], which requires them to [spoilers]. And then, just when they think they have solved all of their problems, [spoilers].

[FrobozzWizard]

Pseudo-edit: Echo244 may be making the same joke as me, it's hard to be sure...

No, she's not. You need to watch Serenity (or watch Firefly, then Serenity).

[HES]

I find it a little weird to see hand-drawn text next to hand-drawn handwriting.

Pseudo-edit: Echo244 may be making the same joke as me, it's hard to be sure...

You're referencing entirely different programs.

Also, seems comics are going up a lot later recently. The last several have been well into the UK afternoon.

[rmsgrey]

There was a story including a nude Olympic hundred-meter dash in vacuum on the moon, but I don' t remember the name of the story or the author, and Google isn't helping me on this.

My first guess was Clarke, but a quick look through the contents of my copy of The Collected Stories doesn't turn up any likely candidates. My next guess would be Asimov, though I don't have a handy source for his shorts to check.

I don't have a third guess handy.

[Beavertails]

I have what might be 2(ish) easier questions to answer.

1(ish): Why does the ISS orbit so closely? Is there an advantage to orbiting at that altitude?

2: Why don't we have an observational satellite at the Sun–Earth L₃ Lagrange Point?

[HES]

2: Why don't we have an observational satellite at the Sun–Earth L₃ Lagrange Point?

We do, but it's classified.

[ebow]

I have what might be 2(ish) easier questions to answer.

1(ish): Why does the ISS orbit so closely? Is there an advantage to orbiting at that altitude?

2: Why don't we have an observational satellite at the Sun–Earth L₃ Lagrange Point?

1: Easy(ish) to resupply.

2: (a) It would be complicated to communicate with a satellite at that location, (b) it would be tricky to acheive that orbit, (c) L3 is unstable, (d) I don't expect you'd learn anything new from that location, and (e) the inhabitants of the planet hidden there have spent a lot of money influencing space program missions to ensure we don't send anything their way.

[mathmannix]

Why don't we have in-between-sized planets?

My assumption for this has always (since I started thinking about it, anyway) been that bigger planets have exponentially (or cubed? or something) bigger atmospheres, so if a planet started off as a rocky earthlike planet twice earth's size, it would become (or would have become?) a "gas" planet with an atmosphere that made it 4 (or 8) (or something?) times as big as earth. I mean, we don't really know what's in the middle of Jupiter or Saturn, right?

[Neil_Boekend]

In what most of us are pleased to call real life (while some are of course angry about it), there is the 300 Degree Club at the Scott-Amundsen South Pole Research Station where they have the big Ice Cube neutrino telescope. When it gets to a hundred below in the winter, they crank the sauna up to 200. Sit in there naked until you are thoroughly toasty, or rather steamed through, and then head out the door wearing only running shoes, and around the nearby South Pole marker and back in.

I have been in a sauna at 110°C and that takes training. You would really need to be an addict to have been in a sauna so often that 200°C is non-lethal. And I didn't know the temperature on the south pole dropped beneath the sublimation point of carbondioxide.

[kalira]

In what most of us are pleased to call real life (while some are of course angry about it), there is the 300 Degree Club at the Scott-Amundsen South Pole Research Station where they have the big Ice Cube neutrino telescope. When it gets to a hundred below in the winter, they crank the sauna up to 200. Sit in there naked until you are thoroughly toasty, or rather steamed through, and then head out the door wearing only running shoes, and around the nearby South Pole marker and back in.

I have been in a sauna at 110°C and that takes training. You would really need to be an addict to have been in a sauna so often that 200°C is non-lethal. And I didn't know the temperature on the south pole dropped beneath the sublimation point of carbondioxide.

Knowing nothing about this topic, I would guess conversion to freedom units might make slightly more sense (and slightly fewer dead bodies)? 93.33°C (200°F) to -73.33°C (-100°F). Of course, I can't comprehend temperatures that distant from the norm anyway.

[mathmannix]

In what most of us are pleased to call real life (while some are of course angry about it), there is the 300 Degree Club at the Scott-Amundsen South Pole Research Station where they have the big Ice Cube neutrino telescope. When it gets to a hundred below in the winter, they crank the sauna up to 200. Sit in there naked until you are thoroughly toasty, or rather steamed through, and then head out the door wearing only running shoes, and around the nearby South Pole marker and back in.

I have been in a sauna at 110°C and that takes training. You would really need to be an addict to have been in a sauna so often that 200°C is non-lethal. And I didn't know the temperature on the south pole dropped beneath the sublimation point of carbondioxide.

Knowing nothing about this topic, I would guess conversion to freedom units might make slightly more sense (and slightly fewer dead bodies)? 93.33°C (200°F) to -73.33°C (-100°F). Of course, I can't comprehend temperatures that distant from the norm anyway.

Yeah, the internets show that the correct (aka Fahrenheit) temperature scale is what is actually used in this situation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/300_Club
http://christinahammock.blogspot.com/20 ... -club.html
http://antarcticnet.tripod.com/300club.html

[Jackpot777]

Why don't we have in-between-sized planets?

Why are there no medium-sized planets? We know there are, outside our Solar System, and in our local area it's all to do with the escape velocity of a planet's atmosphere.

Mercury (or our Moon) isn't big enough to hold onto a gas when it's that close to the Sun. Hydrogen atoms can have enough thermal energy to escape the planet's gravity. Heavier atoms, like oxygen, also escape as a result of energetic chemical reactions or collisions (solar wind's a bitch this close in. Jupiter and Saturn's moons don't have to deal with that hassle).

Mars wasn't big enough to hold its lighter stuff because it's small, but it's further from the Sun so it doesn't share Mercury's fate. It gets to hold onto a small amount of what it had at formation. It holds onto the heavier stuff, the carbon dioxide.

Once you get to Venus and Earth sizes, we hold onto our atmosphere (but Hydrogen and Helium still get free). Venus gets more sun, more solar wind, so its atmosphere is thanks mainly to its CO₂. The fun happens when you get planets big enough to hold hydrogen without letting it slip away. Dr. Sean Raymond, a post doctoral researcher at the Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy (CASA) at the University of Colorado, says:

The largest “terrestrial” planet is generally considered the one before you get too thick of an atmosphere, which happens at about 5-10 Earth masses (something like 2 Earth radii). Those planets are more Earth-like than Neptune-like.

Any bigger, the hydrogen in its atmosphere can't escape. It begins to slowly accumulate the matter in its orbit, even the very rarified hydrogen in the almost-vacuum of space. If the system had a lot of gaseous matter to make a planet bigger than Earth but smaller than Neptune, even better. That's a gas dwarf (or a mini-Neptune). Kepler-138d has a mass slightly less than that of Earth or Venus but a density too low for a rocky planet (so it looks bigger - around 120% the size of Earth), so if you're looking for a medium-sized planet ...well, there it is. We're on the way to in-between sizes.



As you can see from this, the Kepler survey has found a few medium-sized planets.

[ghedipunk]

On Jupiter's Great Red Spot.

TL;DR version: Ammonia ice high in the Jovian atmosphere turns red under the sun's UV light. Due to the vortex, the reddened ammonia stays suspended. This effect is not seen in other storms (the many white spots) because the clouds do not reach the same elevation as in the GRS, thus do not get exposed to as much UV light.

Source: NASA's Cassini mission page. I can't link directly to it because the board wants to make sure I'm not a spammer first, but some Google-fu with the words "Jupiter red spot ammonia" brings up several articles that all link to the original NASA article.

[Keyman]

In what most of us are pleased to call real life (while some are of course angry about it), there is the 300 Degree Club at the Scott-Amundsen South Pole Research Station where they have the big Ice Cube neutrino telescope. When it gets to a hundred below in the winter, they crank the sauna up to 200. Sit in there naked until you are thoroughly toasty, or rather steamed through, and then head out the door wearing only running shoes, and around the nearby South Pole marker and back in.

And I didn't know the temperature on the south pole dropped beneath the sublimation point of carbondioxide.

That's why you wear the shoes!

[Plasma_Wolf]

QI can answer any Titan related question

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjU-wpf63ng

[Madrix]

Why are all of the blotches on the near side?

They probably aren't. There are likely just as many on the far side but any that are there have likely been hidden by the craters of multiple meteor impacts which occurred long after the moon ceased to be volcanically active. Impacts are far less common on the near side because an interstellar object would have to fly very close to the Earth, without succumbing to Earth's gravity, before it could impact on the moon's near side.

[silvermorph]

Q: Why are all the blotches [on the moon] on the near side.

Speculative answer: They aren't. The far side of the moon collects small impacts much more frequently than the near side, because the near side is generally protected from small impacts by the earth. These small impacts break up the relatively smooth lava beds, and over time obfuscate the splotches. You can still see the vague outline of splotches on the far side in google earth's moon view, they're just dusted over with lighter impact dust.

[da Doctah]

Add my question to the list: Why is there no way to pronounce Io without sounding like a screaming looney?

(Same question, but substitute Quaoar.)

[sotanaht]

Add my question to the list: Why is there no way to pronounce Io without sounding like a screaming looney?

(Same question, but substitute Quaoar.)

What's so wrong with "Eye-Oh", other than that it sounds like "I owe"?

[da Doctah]

What's so wrong with "Eye-Oh", other than that it sounds like "I owe"?

Or like Ed McMahon.

Or like "Ai wo".

(And then there's Quaoar's moon, Weywot. Pronounced "Wai', what?")

[puppysized]

Old McDonald had a planet, E-I-E-I-O.
And on his planet he had a moon, E-I-E-Io!!

[16characters]

Why does Iapetus have a belt?

I got this one - to keep his pants up! (Okay, to keep his toga from flying about?)

[RogueCynic]

My question:

If Mars has a face on one side, does it have an ass on the other?

[GuesssWho]

I'm pretty sure the Hadean was, um, hellish. Hence the name.

[da Doctah]

If Mars has a face on one side, does it have an ass on the other?

No, a buffalo.

[orthogon]

Add my question to the list: Why is there no way to pronounce Io without sounding like a screaming looney?

(Same question, but substitute Quaoar.)

What's so wrong with "Eye-Oh", other than that it sounds like "I owe"?

Yeah, it's not the worst named moon: that has to be Bumhole (pronounced "byoom-ho-lay")

[wayne]

We wouldn't be able to use buoyant city-balloons in a hydrogen atmosphere, unless we heated it significantly. Or the bubbles somehow held vacuum instead of gas. (Weird concept, "holding" vacuum...)
A helium atmosphere might be able to support a hydrogen balloon, but it would have to be huge.
The more heavier gasses, the easier it would get.
For any decent buoyant device, like a zeppelin, to fly on Jupiter or Saturn, I'd guess (because I'm too lazy to look up the info at the moment) that it would have to fly so low in the atmosphere that the pressure would be unbearable for humans.

[dtilque]

Add my question to the list: Why is there no way to pronounce Io without sounding like a screaming looney?

Just pronounce it the way it's spelled (which pronunciation, BTW, is not "eye-oh").

(Same question, but substitute Quaoar.)

Replace the O with an S before pronouncing that...

[cellocgw]

Now can we please get back to astronomy, it's far more interesting to read about than apologetics for the "default male" position.

That position being: kneeling at the end of the bed and begging? (rim shot)

[Neil_Boekend]

Back to the actual topic, my solar system question is why do the earth and the moon seem to have an almost identical chemical make-up? Why doesn't the moon have any chemical traces of the giant impactor that we think caused it in the first place?

The Giant Impactor theory states that the core of the moon is made up of Theia (the Mars sized astroid that collided with us) while the surface is mostly made up of the pieces of Earth that were blown out of the earth by the event.

Alternatively the fission hypothesis states that the moon may be formed by a giant nuclear explosion. You see, due to centrifugal forces it is likely that there is (or rather, was) a thick layer of radioactive elements like Uranium and Thorium in a band at the equator at the boundary between the core and the mantle. When it was formed it may have surpassed the critical neutron density, resulting in a massive nuclear explosion under the equator. Because the Earth was spinning quite a lot faster back then the mass there only needed a little push to get into orbit. Thus the mass of the moon was launched into space.

In short: we're not sure how the moon formed yet.

[karhell]

Of course we do. It's a giant space-dragon egg...thingy
What do you mean, Doctor Who isn't real ? >.>

[Neil_Boekend]

Spoilers!

Spoiler:

We won't know that until 2049

[Essah]

I have what might be 2(ish) easier questions to answer.

1(ish): Why does the ISS orbit so closely? Is there an advantage to orbiting at that altitude?

2: Why don't we have an observational satellite at the Sun–Earth L₃ Lagrange Point?

1: Easy(ish) to resupply.

2: (a) It would be complicated to communicate with a satellite at that location, (b) it would be tricky to acheive that orbit, (c) L3 is unstable, (d) I don't expect you'd learn anything new from that location, and (e) the inhabitants of the planet hidden there have spent a lot of money influencing space program missions to ensure we don't send anything their way.

how do you "hide" a planet... I mean, planets are big vast spheres, and there's not that many things to hide behind in space

[HES]

how do you "hide" a planet... I mean, planets are big vast spheres, and there's not that many things to hide behind in space

The bigger, vaster sphere known as the sun.