Talk:3103: Exoplanet System

"Faint dust cloud that will cause several papers to be retracted" could refer to either Fomalhaut b (former proposed exoplanet that turned out to be a dust cloud) or Tabby's Star (star with odd irregular dimming pattern likely due to a dust cloud, but was briefly thought by some to be an alien megastructure the speculation of which caused the media to lose their shit). Erika lovelace (talk) 19:53, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

Somebody should word it better but the idea of a black hole accretion disk having a habitable zone is pretty typical for Randall brand humor. 130.76.187.35 20:12, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

I think it's actually a reference to Interstellar. In that movie three planets are sort of in the habitable zone of a giant black hole's accretion disk. Whether that means they have to be in the accretion disk, or whether they can be outside it but still in the habitable zone of the disk's radiation, I'm not sure. -- Ken g6 (talk) 00:17, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

An alternative reading of #18 is that the planet may or may not be too hot for rocks to solidify at the surface. (Even if this turns out to be implausible, Randall does stretch the bounds of plausibility on occasion.) 87.75.45.216 08:36, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

An accretion disk is also found around a star. So the exoplanet may be in the zone where planets may actually form. (talking about the title text) 129.27.217.99 08:59, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

An accretion disk forms around my desk. Whether or not it counts as habitable is debatable, though. 82.13.184.33 09:15, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, the Earth is thought to have formed from the accretion disk of the Sun 4.5b years ago. It probably has nothing to do with black holes. Robisodd (talk) 12:12, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

This is my reading of it too: the planet being within the habitable zone of the accretion disk is (IMO) referencing a very young solar system, discovered at some time before the planets have swept their orbits clear. Therefore although "habitable", it'll be a few hundred million years before even what we hypothesize as the "Late Heavy Bombardment", concomitant with the very earliest traces of life on Earth. In other words, great news for future colonization as long as your hopes for the future are not contingent on there being anyone remotely human still around... 2A01:CB08:E6:7000:910F:2296:2C6D:46C4 10:27, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

My read of this is that the planet is habitable but perhaps it "doesn't like" life. Galeindfal (talk) 13:36, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

Weird side note: isn't Anne McCaffrey's PERN technically a Habitable planet that passes trough an accretion disk? There's a whole subplot about doing some weird magic-science to stabilize the orbit and stop the inspiraling in the later books. 104.129.192.49 22:33, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

I'm a little unsure of this so could someone help me confirm my theory? There is a shape in xkcd: Escape Speed that looks quite similar to the "faint dust cloud that will cause several papers to be retracted" shape (in xkcd: Exoplanet System). I'm wondering if xkcd: Exoplanet System might be a map of the xkcd: Escape Speed world? RedDragon (talk) 14:53, 17 June 2025 (UTC)RedDragon

I assumed the "fist-sized rock" was something relatively close to the observatory, which is not calibrated properly so it seems to be at the star's distance. Barmar (talk) 16:09, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMiKyfd6hA0 92.23.2.228 20:17, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

Could the ‘fist-sized rock’ be a reference to Welcome To Night Vale, in which a character, named Sarah Sultan is a ‘fist-sized river rock’? Broseph (talk) 06:18, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

The intro seems to major a little too heavily on the habitability aspect. Only four of the items in the comic mention habitability - five if you count the 'Earth-like data artifact' - plus the title text. That's not even a third of the total items. Astronomers aren't only interested by worlds that might be habitable - they're excited by the vast array of interesting things out there. 82.13.184.33 08:31, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

"Wet Saturn" and "Hot Mars" may also be a reference to Pliny the Elder's Historia Naturalis, Book 2 Chapter 18. https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0137%3Abook%3D2%3Achapter%3D18