1830: ISS Solar Transit 2

|< < Prev Comic #1830 (April 28, 2017) Next > >|

ISS Solar Transit 2

Title text: Most people don't realize it, but they actually launch a new space station every few weeks because this keeps happening.

Explanation

This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon. If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

This Friday comic is a continuation of the Monday comic from the same week, 1828: ISS Solar Transit, where Cueball was preparing his camera in order to try an capture the transit of the International Space Station (ISS) across the Sun. The comic is also made in the same special way uing split panels.

However, instead of transiting across the face of the sun, the ISS crashes into the Sun. In reality, of course, this can never happen, because the ISS orbits Earth at an altitude of between 330 and 435 km, while the Earth orbits the Sun at an altitude of about 149.60 million kilometers or 1 astronomical unit. This means the minimum distance between the ISS and the Sun is only slightly less than 1 AU. Also, due to parallax, only people in a very localized region on earth are able to see the ISS "hit" the sun. For all others the ISS would travel past the sun.

Additionally, even if the ISS would somehow impact the sun, it would not make a noticeable splash, due to being incredibly tiny compared to the sun. It would get vaporized before reaching it. (See the what if? Tungsten Countertop. And it would make no "Fwoosh" sound to be hears on Earth, primarily because there's a lot of empty space between Earth and the Sun, and sound cannot propagate in empty space.

The title text plays on the event in the comic, by saying that a new space station is being launched every few week as the event of the comic keeps happening, so a continuation of ISS'es gets destroyed by crashing into the Sun on a regular basis. This is clearly implausible, as it has taken many years to build up the ISS, and there are at least three astronauts on board that would get killed a couple of times a month.

As a noted in the first comic in the ISS series the white balance is still not set properly, because the sun looks orange instead of white/yellow.

Transcript

[Every panel is split into two half height panels above each other.]

[The top panel shows an image of an orange sun on a black background with a dot marked ISS in a cross-hair and a trail.]

[In the bottom panel Cueball is kneeling in front of a small platform while operating a camera with a very long objective while holding a smartphone. The camera is angled sharply upward toward the sky as it is attached to a tripod standing on the platform.]

Cueball: Perfect! Transit in three... two...

[The dot marked as ISS moves closer to the sun]

Cueball: ...one...

[The dot plunges into the sun]

FWOOSH

Trivia

• The ISS travels across the face of the sun in 0.47 seconds (calculation).
  • If we assume that Cueball is counting seconds, then the depicted speed of the ISS between panels 1 and 2 is too slow.
• This could be seen as a joke on Pink Floyd's Set the controls for the heart of the sun.

 add a comment! ⋅  add a topic (use sparingly)! ⋅  refresh comments!

Discussion

Gees Randal, that's actually really dark.

Attempted explaining. It is not real, ... I hope {{108.162.229.250 05:03, 28 April 2017 (UTC)}}

costs would be astronomical. I see what you did there and I approve. 162.158.92.118 07:23, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

astronomical, good joke 141.101.105.216 09:35, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

+1 Elektrizikekswerk (talk) 11:28, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, I was amused by that too. But looks like someone removed it. 162.158.154.109 17:06, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

Have to disagree on the Pink Floyd joke. I don't see it. Xseo (talk) 11:43, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

The diameter of the sun is 864,575.9 mi. In the first panel the ISS is about that far away. Second panel is about halfway, so 432,287.95 miles. According to Popular Science, the ISS could probably make it to just over a million miles away before burning up (seeing as how the shuttle could make it ~1.3 million and I think the ISS has more protection), the "fwoosh" should be in the first panel. And in any matter, the sound effect should be a "sploosh" sound with the splashing visuals. OldCorps (talk) 13:22, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

If the impact were to really happen as shown, then one of two things must be true, either: 1) The ISS is really really large (eyeballing it as about 4x the size of the Earth vs. the size of the Sun as shown) or 2) The Sun is really smaller than we think and as close as the ISS's orbit. In either case, the ISS would be likely to survive entry into the Sun's surface. If the former is true, this also makes replacing it twice a month all the more impressive. Go NASA!.Harodotus (talk) 16:48, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

Obviously, the Sun is really smaller and as close as the ISS's orbit and it orbits Earth which is flat and in the center of Universe as Bible says. What else would you expect from the conspiracy theory? -- Hkmaly (talk) 22:12, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

Anyone want to try explaining limb darkening (as drawn in the comic)? 198.41.238.40 18:28, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

Is there a reason Randall has done two IIS Solar Transit comics this week? Are these transits rare and one is happening around now or something? --Pascal (talk) 01:14, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Please recalculate the speed of ISS with an orbital distance of 1 AU. Then the fwoosh could be realistic to be in the third panel and to be as large as depicted? Sebastian --172.68.110.82 07:26, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

This explanation spends an awful lot of time telling how the comic is unrealistic, and not as much time actually EXPLAINING the comic's humor. 108.162.238.77 17:15, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Maybe we should put the astronomical joke back? It's not too bad. <162.158.46.46 08:46, 29 April 2017 (UTC)>