Talk:126: Red Spiders Cometh

2021-08-17T15:01:58Z

172.69.71.95: The scale is not predetermined.

Does anyone else think that the red spiders are supposed to be revealed as unexpectedly huge in this entry of the Red Spiders series, and that's to what the "Uh-oh" in the title text refers? That is, the humans in "[[Counter-Red_Spiders|Counter-Red Spiders]]" thought they could fight the red spiders, but the perspective in "Red Spiders Cometh" reveals the red spiders to be building-sized rather than person-sized? ...Or am I probably just over-thinking this, and the spiders' blocks are curving down from the viewer toward the city, resulting in a false apparent size, and the "Uh-oh" just refers to their arrival? Because it really seems to me that 1: the spiders are on a much larger scale than humans, and 2: this is a troubling revelation as of "Red Spiders Cometh". [[User:JET73L|JET73L]] ([[User talk:JET73L|talk]]) 07:21, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

: I imagined them to be human sized. Still scary and formidable prompting the same title response. I would love to see the author do another Red Spiders comic. I want to see the fight between them.[[Special:Contributions/72.193.184.110|72.193.184.110]] 07:02, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

:there's no way to tell what the size of the spiders is. the perspective has the spiders closer to the observer (us) than the buildings, so they might actually be any size (depending on how close they are). {{unsigned ip|108.162.254.85}}
:The comic "Bad Timing" indicates their bodies are about the size of a human head. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.177|108.162.238.177]] 14:39, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
::From which we should be able to figure out how close they are. [[User:Richmond tudor|Richmond tudor]] ([[User talk:Richmond tudor|talk]]) 05:02, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

: Personally, I think if them as all being in the micro scale - the city & people too, which would explain how people can make such a tall human ladder in the counter red spiders comic. Maybe small enough to float down on the blocks (because air is a proportionally more viscous fluid at that scale iirc)? Them again I imagine them being inspired by clover mites, which is probably totally unfounded
09:10, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

Guys? Anyone feel that the grammar error (unless I'm to be a silhouette on someone's desk soon) is worth mention? "Cometh" is third person ''singular'' ("he cometh", but "they come") after all... Unless I'm wrong.
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.225.92|108.162.225.92]] 14:53, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

:I think it is probably a pun on "comets", which the spiders are kind of falling down along with. 02:18, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
They're mites, dammit.—[[User:Kazvorpal|Kazvorpal]] ([[User talk:Kazvorpal|talk]]) 01:45, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

One of the interesting things about this strip is that top and bottom work at ANY scale. Are the mites small and in the foreground, traveling away from us and approaching the city (this is the interpretation that puts them the right size for #427)? Midground, building-sized spiders, hovering above the city as the article claims? Or far distance, city-sized spiders, approaching the city from space, not following the curve of the Earth? Is the city a microcity? --[[Special:Contributions/172.69.71.95|172.69.71.95]] 15:01, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

1371: Brightness

2021-08-15T16:36:07Z

172.69.71.95:

{{comic
| number = 1371
| date = May 21, 2014
| title = Brightness
| image = brightness.png
| titletext = Recently, some exoplanet astronomers have managed to use careful analysis of reflected light to discover Earth during the day.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Exoplanets}} are planets outside of our solar system, and exoplanet astronomers are astronomers who attempt to discover and study such planets.

[[Megan]] is using a common exoplanet {{w|Exoplanet#Indirect_methods|discovery technique}} to discover a planet around a nearby star. When a planet passes between an observing astronomer and a star, the planet will block some tiny part of the light coming from that star, causing it to appear dimmer for some amount of time. The {{w|Kepler (spacecraft)|Kepler telescope}} used this technique to find evidence for exoplanets.

But here Megan is standing on the surface of the Earth at night, looking at the ground, and therefore presumably looking in the direction of the sun. By observing that it is completely occluded at night, she correctly concludes that the Sun is orbited by at least one planet: the Earth. This is obviously an absurd usage of that method. Reasons include the fact that exoplanets are not big enough to block out all of their stars' light when seen from Earth{{Citation needed}}, making what Megan says a massive understatement, and that the period of the brightness oscillations would correspond to the length of a day, not a year as it would for exoplanets.

The title text alludes to using more complicated techniques to observe light reflected by small planets like the Earth, for example by detecting {{w|Methods of detecting exoplanets#Polarimetry|polarized light}} reflected from the planet's atmosphere. In some sense, observing the light that reflects off of the Earth during the day is in fact how we see everything around us. It also implies that astronomers, who because of their career choice are more likely to work at night, might be completely unaware of Earth's existence in the daytime and thus surprised to "discover" it from their nighttime work.

==Transcript==
:[A black panel with white text and a white Megan who is standing staring at the ground.]
:Megan: Based on this decrease in the star's brightness, I believe it is orbited by at least one planet.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Exoplanet astronomers at night

==Trivia==
*The title text may also be a reference to [[1231: Habitable Zone]] where an astronomer is messed up by someone who puts a mirror in front of the telescope.
*More details at: {{w|Methods of detecting exoplanets}}.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with inverted brightness]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Exoplanets]]

explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:126: Red Spiders Cometh

1371: Brightness