Re: Spaceships and astronomy
Originally Posted by Shard
(Post 11976450)
I'm just thinking, many random objects are on a collision course with Earth, but get burned up in the atmosphere. If one were to hit the orbiting astroid (unlikely but possible) its trajectory would likely include a liaison with Earth.
Encountering random larger objects like near Earth asteroids, or long-period comets is all about timing. 99.9999% of the time, everything misses because their trajectories have to be 100% perfectly intersecting to result in an impact. |
Re: Spaceships and astronomy
As Douglas Adams wrote "Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space."
The earth is very very small in comparison to all the empty bits around it, so the odds that something would hit the earth are quite small. Unless of course you're in the path of the hyperspace bypass... |
Re: Spaceships and astronomy
Originally Posted by sir_eccles
(Post 11976523)
As Douglas Adams wrote "Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space."
The earth is very very small in comparison to all the empty bits around it, so the odds that something would hit the earth are quite small. Unless of course you're in the path of the hyperspace bypass... Anyway, back to spacey stuff, the Juno probe is due to reach Jupiter on July 4. Hopefully it will send back information to rival the absolutely wonderful data New Horizons returned from Pluto. https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/juno/main/index.html |
Re: Spaceships and astronomy
I've read Douglas Adams (years ago) and often see him quoted (as here) but I genuinely can't fathom why people find him so amusing. Mildly amusing yes, but no more. I did like the 42, that was highly original, but the rest, just a bit droll.
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Re: Spaceships and astronomy
My favourite H2G2 line:
"anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job." So true. :nod: |
Re: Spaceships and astronomy
Originally Posted by Shard
(Post 11976553)
I've read Douglas Adams (years ago) and often see him quoted (as here) but I genuinely can't fathom why people find him so amusing. Mildly amusing yes, but no more. I did like the 42, that was highly original, but the rest, just a bit droll.
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Re: Spaceships and astronomy
Originally Posted by sir_eccles
(Post 11976523)
As Douglas Adams wrote "Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space."
The earth is very very small in comparison to all the empty bits around it, so the odds that something would hit the earth are quite small. Unless of course you're in the path of the hyperspace bypass... I recall a comparison of something like the solar system if reduced to the size of a soccer field, the sun on the centre spot would be a hazel nut, and the "gas giants" would be around the size of a grain of rice. The earth would be a crystal of table salt, and obviously Venus, Mercury, Mars, and Pluto much smaller still. :blink: |
Re: Spaceships and astronomy
Originally Posted by Pulaski
(Post 11976567)
I was reading fairly recently that the common misperception of the relative size of planets and the solar system is caused by the composite images of several planets in the same picture, pera with the sun in the distance. In order to make such images possible the planets are massively exaggerated in size relative to the distances between them.
I recall a comparison of something like the solar system if reduced to the size of a soccer field, the sun on the centre spot would be a hazel nut, and the "gas giants" would be around the size of a grain of rice. The earth would be a crystal of table salt, and obviously Venus, Mercury, Mars, and Pluto much smaller still. :blink: The Sun is 98% of the mass of the solar system, the orbit of Neptune is just short of 3 billion miles in diameter and the Oort cloud theoretically extends to a diameter of a light year. That's a lot of nothing in between ... |
Re: Spaceships and astronomy
Originally Posted by Pulaski
(Post 11976567)
I was reading fairly recently that the common misperception of the relative size of planets and the solar system is caused by the composite images of several planets in the same picture, pera with the sun in the distance. In order to make such images possible the planets are massively exaggerated in size relative to the distances between them.
I recall a comparison of something like the solar system if reduced to the size of a soccer field, the sun on the centre spot would be a hazel nut, and the "gas giants" would be around the size of a grain of rice. The earth would be a crystal of table salt, and obviously Venus, Mercury, Mars, and Pluto much smaller still. :blink: |
Re: Spaceships and astronomy
Originally Posted by SultanOfSwing
(Post 11976577)
Those composites vastly underrepresent how much of the solar system is just empty space.
The Sun is 98% of the mass of the solar system, the orbit of Neptune is just short of 3 billion miles in diameter and the Oort cloud theoretically extends to a diameter of a light year. That's a lot of nothing in between ... That all rather puts things in perspective, doesn't it. :( |
Re: Spaceships and astronomy
Originally Posted by Pulaski
(Post 11976593)
And yet the Sun is a fairly insignificant star and one of billions of stars in the milky way, which in turn is only one of billions of galaxies.
That all rather puts things in perspective, doesn't it. :( |
Re: Spaceships and astronomy
Originally Posted by sir_eccles
(Post 11976606)
To quote Carl Sagan "Billyuns and billyuns"
Yet here we are arguing over the relative merits of top loaders v front loaders. |
Re: Spaceships and astronomy
Originally Posted by sir_eccles
(Post 11976606)
..... Yet here we are arguing over the relative merits of top loaders v front loaders.
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Re: Spaceships and astronomy
Originally Posted by Pulaski
(Post 11976617)
I thought we had agreed, front loaders are obviously better. :scarper:
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Re: Spaceships and astronomy
Originally Posted by Pulaski
(Post 11976593)
And yet the Sun is a fairly insignificant star and one of billions of stars in the milky way, which in turn is only one of billions of galaxies.
That all rather puts things in perspective, doesn't it. :( But yeah, the sun is bang average and now we're discovering more and more exoplanets it appears that stars having planetary systems are bang average as well, which means for every billion stars, there could be maybe three billion planets, adjusting for stars that might not have any. Yet there's still way more empty space between the matter than there is matter itself.
Originally Posted by Pulaski
(Post 11976617)
I thought we had agreed, front loaders are obviously better. :scarper:
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