Editing 2336: Campfire Habitable Zone

{{comic
| number    = 2336
| date      = July 22, 2020
| title     = Campfire Habitable Zone
| image     = campfire_habitable_zone.png
| titletext = Oh no, my marshmallow became tidally locked!
}}

{{incomplete|Created by a FIRE-PROOF ORBITING SMORE-MAKING ROBOT. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

==Explanation==
This comic plays on the concept of the astronomic "habitable zone" applied at the scale of people sitting around a campfire.

The {{w|Circumstellar habitable zone|habitable zone}} for a star (also known as the "Goldilocks Zone") is the range of distances in which a planet might support liquid water, and hence life. Too close, and the amount of stellar radiation would be too great, causing water to boil. Too far, and the water would freeze. For liquid water to actually exist, the planet itself must also have the right mass (in order to maintain a life-compatible atmosphere) and meet other requirements. For our sun, the habitable zone is estimated to range from about 0.38 to 10 astronomical units, where 1.0 is the distance from the sun to the Earth.

Marshmallow roasting is a popular American camping activity in which people place a marshmallow (a soft, sugary blob made of gelatin and covered in corn starch) on a stick near a fire. As it cooks, the middle becomes gooey while the outside becomes crispy and perhaps slightly charred, making it tastier.

In the context of the campfire, a similar "habitable zone" is posited to exist: close enough to the fire that the person can comfortably {{w|Marshmallow#Toasted_marshmallows|toast marshmallows}}, presumably on a stick of reasonable length; yet far enough that the person is not uncomfortably hot, or even burnt by the flames.

In the comic, Ponytail is sitting in the habitable zone (marked in green), and appears to be enjoyably toasting a marshmallow. Cueball is sitting half outside the habitable zone on the right, too close to the fire, and appears to be getting singed on his arm, which is too close to the fire. Megan is well outside the habitable zone on the cool side. She is waving a marshmallow on a stick, but presumably it will not toast, as it is too far from the fire.

The title text introduces the concept of {{w|tidal locking}}. This is when one astronomical body synchronises its rotation with its orbit around another, such that one side always faces the other body. This is the case of Earth's moon, which always presents the same face to the Earth. The joke here is that if a marshmallow became tidally locked to the fire, then one side would become more and more cooked, perhaps burnt, while the other side never became toasted at all.



==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[The scene consists of 3 people sitting around a fire with two green areas to the left and right of the fire marked as the habitable zone
:Ponytail is sitting to the left with her body fully in the green habitable zone and is holding a stick with a marshmallow pointed at the fire
:Cueball is sitting to the right half sitting in the white area where the fire is and half in the green habitable zone
:Megan is sitting to the left outside the habitable zone with a marshmallow on the stick pointing into the green zone]
:Below the scene two arrows point to the two green areas marked with the label: Habitable zone 

:[Caption below panel:]
:Astronomers define the campfire habitable zone as the region where you're far enough not to be burned by close enough to roast marshmallows.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]