Newt

The big problem here is the vast number of unknown quantities. In science we are used to looking at ourselves and our world as fairly mundane; a place that simply happened by accident and probably happened heaps of other times elsewhere. This has held true for many things, the discovery of other worlds orbiting the Sun, the understanding that the Sun is one of many stars, in one of many galaxies, the realization that other stars do also have planets, and all manner of other new ideas have furthered the mindset that Earth is not unique, and that if Earth is not unique life, and therefore intelligent life, civilization, is not unique. That then leads us to suppose that likely there are many other people out there, wandering about the Universe. Competing with this idea, is of course the possibility that we are more unique than we think. After all, the only reason that we have discovered life is quite possibly that we are life ourselves, and it happens to, well, be where we are. The only reason that this appears mundane is because other things look mundane, too, and that previous concepts of geo- and anthro-centrism have been by and large shot down. Thus civilization should be mundane, as everything else seems to be. But should we really decide that something is so, just because it is associated so loosely to something that was wrong? All of these boil down to speculation, to thinking about what the Universe may be like, granted with some background, and logic, but still just speculation about very complex things. We know life arose once. At least. And the same goes for civilization. But in order to surmise whether it arose elsewhere, and in order to understand where, why, and how it can arise, we need to find whether it has arisen elsewhere. Therefore, finding more life is one of the major goals that has been cited by NASA and others pursuing space exploration today. As for why we have not encountered it yet, if it exists elsewhere, there are myriad possible reasons, as this thread attests. We cannot answer the questions of the Universe by sitting in our armchairs, chatting and hypothesizing. We answer these questions by going out, and finding evidence. That is science.

Did you follow the link? it goes to an article about pre-Voyager ideas of spacecraft to get to the outer planets, and most of those schemes would indeed take ages, possibly involve meeting up with refueling stations, and other things that we have avoided more recently. My point was that the ways we have of getting to certain locations, are not always the only ways, or the best ways.

Oh. Hmmm. Well. I am seeing it mostly thus (after trying a complex and weird way of looking at it that did not work): Say your head is the slowest, and your feet the fastest. Your feet will feel more time than your heart/lungs, so your heart rate slows down a good deal from their view. The blood coming into that region, and going out from it, corresponds to the upper body's time, not their own time, so if the feet see 10bpm heart rate, they will get maybe a sixth of what they expect, bloodwise. Likewise, the head will see maybe 80bpm, (just a rough guess around a 60bpm normalish heart rate. Probably it will be abnormally high considering the circumstances (unless your name is Jebidiah)). This would make it so that the brain gets more blood passing through it. The middle heart region maybe should get good flow rates, but it will be probably extra oxygen depraved or enriched based on how fast it is going elsewhere. Your heart will also be processing blood faster than your lungs should receive it. Depending on the circumstances that may be able to be overcome. Does this make sense? Maybe I too tired, am.

Bienvenidos navegante. Es un poco triste que no es mas popular. Pero, tenemos un foro, y por eso razon, soy feliz!

It seems like parts of it would be working differently; your heart would start pumping faster/slower than your brain. Blood would flow more slowly/quickly depending on orientation. Probably, it seems to me, you might suffocate, or fall unconscious, or have a stroke, who knows, just because your brain is probably not getting the blood and air it needs at the correct rate.

Can I leave my llamas there, too, or just goats?

Person who posts a lot in forum games.

Nerves communicate fast, but way slower than the speed of light.

Hey! I saw this on Blender Artists. It is really neat, although I am unsure about the gas planet textures, some of the shots looked like it was a bit too fuzzy. Generally where that level of detail could be seen there should be swirls, if anything. I have been having trouble getting my own gas planet textures to look perfect, and I imagine that those shots took quite a while to render out, as there were so many. Therefore, I am not sure about telling you to redo them all, now. As for the music, I am thinking. Mostly why I did not post on B.A., was because I really have difficulty deciding about music generally (as far as I am concerned, you could have played the theme to Brazil, and it would have worked fine), but if I think of anything to add I will try to do so soon. Good job, generally.

Beans! Beans it is. I will go with beans. And rice perhaps. Beans and rice. Such a lovely meal. Although I am not sure of how to make möbius beans. (Incidentally, this is also my 99th post)

Congratulations! I am sure it was a relief for them to get back home.

I was meaning study as in, look at it with telescopes. We can study objects way farther out (generally way bigger too, granted) than any of those planets could be. Orbiting them, or flying past them will have to wait certainly, but we can study them as soon as we know if they exist/where they are.

It took ages to get to Jupiter just a few decades ago. Things can change. Either way, we can still learn things about very distant planets. First we need to not know whether these distant planets even exist.

Yeah. So much can happen in fifty billion years. Like the entire history of the Universe after the Big Bang, several times over. As for capturing objects, I think part of the issue is that KSP has rather few asteroids, whereas the Solar System has many, many, many asteroids and other objects. It does not have to be a simple thing for a rock to land in Mars orbit, if there are enough objects that pass close enough, one may eventually have just the right circumstances to become a lasting satellite.

I agree. It is rather annoying. I am pretty sure that I cannot email it except for to myself. Phooey.

I am going to say that it likely is from the image. Other features jump and flicker it seems, too. On Triton, geysers are guessed to arise from small sub surface pockets of ice, that are heated by the sun, and eventually sublimate and burst out. Still, without more information, I would personally be more inclined to suggest that it is a bright new impact crater, that seems more likely than a geyser at this point. Also the geysers of Triton were very, very slow moving, and it was possible to determine confidently that they were up above the surface from stereo viewing. I would be surprised if we could already see the changes so well on this feature. It would have to be moving really, really fast. Older Hubble sequence showing possibly the same bright spot.

Icarus has a ton of new papers on Pluto, if anyone is interested. Unfortunately for some, to view the papers online it appears that you need either to pay 35USD/pdf, or have the access through some other means (i.e. school). It looks like some people are suggesting that Pluto and Charon trade some gas between their atmospheres, and there is quite a good number of papers on Pluto's climate, atmosphere, and atmospheric tides (which must be huge). I suppose geology will have to wait till we have actual photos of the surface:rolleyes:.

Exactly what I was wondering. Anyway, this is really exciting. Happy Year of the Dwarf Planet!

Okay. Do you know when that will happen? My very (very) cursory investigation suggests that the Moon moves away currently about 3.78cm/year, and slows the Earth down about 1hr/rotation/9450km receding. In order to stay tidally locked, the Moon will slow down as it moves outward, and so the Earth will have to slow down more still to become tidally locked to the Moon. If when the Moon's orbit hits 1.5 gigameter (about the Earth's Hill sphere. Not a great thing to go by but I am in a rush), it is no longer in orbit, and when the Earth's rotation equals the Moon's orbital period, the recession stops, and all those numbers for changes are constant (which they are not), it looks to me like the Moon should be gone by the time our day is 130 hours, or so. I would check this more carefully, but have not the time at the moment. Do you have any references as support that the Moon will fall back down, or is it just a (logical) forecast?

The Lagrange points are defined by the Earth's gravity and the Moon's gravity, or generally by the gravity of objects in a two body system. As the Moon moves further out, so do the L points. At present the Moon is tidally locked to the Earth, though the Earth is not tidally locked back. The L points The L points are areas, where, the gravity of the Moon and earth balance to some degree. For example, in L1, the gravity of the Moon effectively lessens the gravity of the Earth, such that a body in L1 will orbit the Earth at the same rate as the Moon does. In L2, the Moons gravity compounds with the Earth's, making the object need to orbit faster, matching the orbital period of the Moon. If the Moon is slowly receding, should it not escape? If the only two objects in the Universe were we two, I concede that it would be unlikely, but from my guess, it would probably move out of the Earth's domain prior to its falling back to Earth in the distant future. Do you have any references? (I do not mean to sound defensive or argumentative, and if I do, it is only because I am trying to understand what you are describing, and do not understand certain aspects)

Oh, you are talking about a really huge time scale, then. Are you certain that the Moon would not escape, first? How far out will it have to orbit before that happens?

I see your point, and that would certainly clear up uncertainty, but ambiguity is not the only qualm many people have with the standing IAU definition. Either way, this seems to bridge on a different topic from the hypothetical other solar system planets.

Yeah. Some objects fall in (like Triton), but the Moon is slowly receding from the Earth.

I live at home with parents and TV. If I were alone in the house, I doubt I would ever use it except as a second/third monitor for the computer. Generally it is off, and we hardly get any reception on but two channels. Even those are pretty unreliable.

Much stuff would have crashed back into Earth, much would have flung far away, and the rest would likely have been in weird eccentric inclined orbits. But it would bump into other material, and average ultimately to a less weird orbit, and, with the help of tidal forces, go into the orbit it is in now.