3000: Experimental Astrophysics

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Experimental Astrophysics

Title text: Our experiment will be expensive, but we believe it will produce important spin-offs, especially if we manage to hit the sun from the right angle.

Explanation

A Thorne–Żytkow object is an object theorized by astrophysicists Kip Thorne and Anna Żytkow which is a red giant or red supergiant with a neutron star at its core. There have been no confirmed sightings, but HV 2112 and HV 11417, both in the Small Magellanic Cloud, have in the past been considered strong candidates.

Cueball is asking for a grant for funding for research into these theoretical astral bodies, the implication being that they are asking funding for telescope time, or even an entirely new telescope, in order to make such investigations possible. However, the caption reveals that he is asking for something completely different: funding to create the object, with a gravitational slingshot. Normally, astrophysics is an observational discipline, but the title of the comic (made explicit by the caption text) suggests that this is intended to be a 'practical' experiment to induce a TŻO into existence by actually sending a neutron star into our own Sun.

Cueball is complaining that no one is willing to fund this experiment to create the Thorne–Żytkow object for direct observation. Creating it would be impractical, for several reasons. First, you would need to find (or create!) a neutron star and bring it here, which requires amounts of energy, mass, and precision that we have no current possibility of achieving. Secondly, having a neutron star anywhere near the Sun would most likely destroy the solar system, or at least accelerate its transition to a red giant, which would likely result in Earth being engulfed by it and ruining the weather. The funding body, presumably based on Earth, would probably find the study would not pass an ethics review, and the end result would not generate a favorable environmental impact statement, given the almost inevitable destruction of our planet.

A spin-off usually means something additional that was not originally planned. The title text in this comic is a two-layer joke on the phrase "spin-off", meaning that hitting the Sun off-center (from the right angle) would likely have many unintended consequences, but also cause the Sun to start rotating abnormally, due to the added angular momentum, in the same way as hitting a ball on the side makes it spin. A similar idea (the engulfment of a planet or companion star) has been proposed to explain the apparently anomalous rotation of the red supergiant Betelgeuse.^{[actual citation needed]} "Spin-off" could also refer to material being flung off the Sun due to the impact of the neutron star. If the right material is sent in certain directions, it could have useful, or more likely just 'interesting', properties.

Transcript

[Cueball is standing on a circular podium with a screen behind him. He is holding his palm out towards an unseen audience. On the screen there is a large circle with a solid inner line and a ragged outer line. And then there are two much smaller circles also with solid inner lines and ragged outer lines. One of them is drawn just outside the large circle to the left. An arrow is pointing from this to the center of the large circle, breaking the large circle's edge. It points at the other small circle, which is drawn at the center of the large circle.]

Cueball: A Thorne-Żytkow object is a hypothesized nested star — a red giant with a neutron star inside it.

Cueball: So far, no TŻOs have been definitively observed, but your grant could help us change that.

[Caption below the panel:]

We're struggling to get funding for our project to slingshot a neutron star into the Sun.

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Discussion

Moaning about this being the 3000th comic

I really thought he would do something special for the 3000th comic :( i was so hyped 172.68.64.207 03:48, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Saaame:( but maybe he will do something at 3072SomeRandomNerd (talk) 03:57, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

It's about blowing up the Sun and likely destroying the Solar System. That's not special enough for you? Barmar (talk) 04:01, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

It doesn't reference its three-thousandness, unlike comics 1000 and 2000; it could've been released any other day. 162.158.90.25 04:22, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Maybe we got the pattern wrong: 1000, 2000, 4000, 8000, ... Ruffy314 (talk) 19:44, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

And then it goes 16000, 31000 [1], right? 162.158.39.165 23:05, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Patterns fool ya... Poxy6 (talk) 01:02, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

I was expecting xkcd 3000 for long but very busy today. I found this comic seemingly not too long after its publication, but not rather upset now 物灵 (talk) 06:40, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

SAME! :( B for brain (talk) (youtube channel wobsite (supposed to be a blag)) 09:22, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

ugh me too! why didn't he do it it's so special! 172.71.151.4 (talk) 01:51, 20 October 2024 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

I was so hyped but couldn't check because I went camping-now I'm just disappointed. 42.book.addict (talk) 22:06, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Randall really did fall off 😭 Caliban (talk) 10:23, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

xkcd 4000 is coming out on 10 march 2031 unless randall uploads inconsistently during those 1000 comics (very likely)
unrelatedly i pronounce TŻO as /tiː ʐɛd oʊ/. is that normal? MinersHavenM43 (talk) 04:10, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

You (as I) seem to be rightpondian (or have a smattering of ¿polish? culture still within your leftpondian upbringing). I suspect it would be more /ʐi/ for Randall and most of his countrypeople (or straight /zi/, if not a different attempt at the dot-diacritic). It might more correctly be pronounced as /ˈʐɛt/, however, if I have the correct origin. 172.70.162.2 06:12, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

actually i am brazillian, my english is a mix of primarily american and british english. my understanding of polish came from when i was really into linguistics a few years ago. MinersHavenM43 (talk) 12:34, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

That’s it? That’s 3000? 162.158.154.245 04:20, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

3000th comic! Yay? Beanie ^talk 10:29, 19 October 2024 (UTC) sad172.68.54.32 11:01, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

4096 is the next big release by standard XKCD counting? 172.69.71.190 (talk) 13:54, 19 October 2024 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

wow, that's it? c'mon Randall, you made all those neat April fools comics, and you cant make something special for this 172.69.71.130 16:18, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Even worse. He did something special for comic #1000 & #2000. I was SO hyped! B for brain (talk) (youtube channel wobsite (supposed to be a blag)) 18:37, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Damn. Ever since February of this year I've been waiting with bated breath for today to see what awesome and neat thing Randall will have cooked up for 3000. Talk about a disappointment. Hopefully this is just a mistake or a misdirection, and he'll either replace this comic with the real 3000 comic or maybe release the cool comic tomorrow for 3001. Pie Guy (talk) 17:25, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

3001 is a much more geeky number than 3000, anyway... (or maybe 3072). I shall definitely be anticipating something good for 4096, though. 172.68.205.178 19:13, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

There wasn't anything particularly special for 1024 or 2048. I'm not sure why you expect 4096 to be special.172.70.110.93 19:36, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

And the disappointment of the year award goes to… 172.70.110.93 02:35, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps Comic 3141 could have some reference to being the first 4 decimal digits of pi? Disappointed nonetheless. 172.70.127.139 (talk) 17:36, 20 October 2024 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Perhaps we're not looking hard enough. Is there a numbering system where TZO means 3000? Or maybe the "Ż" symbol? The little dot is U+0307, which is just off by 7... Or perhaps the "little circle pointing into a mirrored C shape" means 3000 in some kind of diagram... --FrankHightower (talk) 17:09, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Cheap cope. I think he either forgot completely about it or just didn't care to make something special. Now pass me the hopium, I need to convince myself this is a galaxy-brain scheme that'll tie in with a later comic Pie Guy (talk) 19:49, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

It kinda sucks that there wasn't a big "WOW!!! 3000!!!" celebration, but he also could've just forgotten and he's cooked up something amazing for us! There's always a chance. P?sych??otic?pot??at???o (talk) 17:27, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Actual comments about this comic

Randall's "Comic 3000" joke is... that he's actually found the funding, as we're soon to discover. (Any guesses where the neutron star came from?) 172.70.58.30 10:03, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Luckily for us, the nearest neutron star is at least 200 light years away. Getting there to capture it and bring it back is going to be at least another 400 years (maybe more like a few thousand) in the making. 172.70.134.22 15:25, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

This is probably gonna get deleted in a minute but, it’s my birthday and my 10th year on dice, also today is comic 3000, I just want to express how much I enjoyed the comics, there isn’t one comic that I haven’t read. Thank you XKCD and thank you Randall for making this the best birthday ever. Also congratulations on 3,000 comics! 162.158.91.92 (talk) 09:36, 21 October 2024 (UTC) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)