Editing 2469: Astronomy Status Board
Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.
The edit can be undone.
Please check the comparison below to verify that this is what you want to do, and then save the changes below to finish undoing the edit.
Latest revision | Your text | ||
Line 8: | Line 8: | ||
==Explanation== | ==Explanation== | ||
− | |||
− | Since they are junior astronomers, they appear to have been tasked with simply verifying whether normal celestial objects are still present in the sky | + | Ponytail is staring at the sky on a telescope while Cueball is operating a checklist, visible on a screen. |
+ | |||
+ | Since they are junior astronomers, they appear to have been tasked with simply verifying whether normal celestial objects are still present in the sky. | ||
This is likely a reference to the many "status boards" for online services ([https://portal.office.com/ServiceStatus example], [https://status.cloud.google.com/ another example], [https://forum.suprbay.org/status a different example], [http://hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com/ a funnier example]). The joke is that it would be funny if there was a status board to check that all the celestial bodies are still there, and that with our modern culture few people are looking directly at the real sky, even though anyone with a telescope and an unobstructed view could just look at the sky to verify for themselves without referencing such a status board. This is compounded by the fact that the listed celestial bodies have existed for billions of years, and are expected to last for billions more, leading one to wonder why astronomers would bother checking and rechecking just to see if they're "still there" with any sort of regularity. | This is likely a reference to the many "status boards" for online services ([https://portal.office.com/ServiceStatus example], [https://status.cloud.google.com/ another example], [https://forum.suprbay.org/status a different example], [http://hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com/ a funnier example]). The joke is that it would be funny if there was a status board to check that all the celestial bodies are still there, and that with our modern culture few people are looking directly at the real sky, even though anyone with a telescope and an unobstructed view could just look at the sky to verify for themselves without referencing such a status board. This is compounded by the fact that the listed celestial bodies have existed for billions of years, and are expected to last for billions more, leading one to wonder why astronomers would bother checking and rechecking just to see if they're "still there" with any sort of regularity. | ||
− | + | Astronomers do regularly observe {{w|occultation}}s of stars by other celestial bodies, and sometimes also search through archived images for missed occultations. This can provide information on the size and orbit of an asteroid too small to observe directly, or other useful scientific knowledge, but occulted stars are not "gone", merely hidden. There are also a few astronomers who are searching image archives for [https://www.space.com/hunt-for-universe-missing-stars-space-mysteries stars that really have completely vanished without a trace] (or suddenly appeared), as this would be a sign of truly novel physics -- perhaps even a sign of extraterrestrial intelligence -- but no such vanishings have yet been identified. | |
==Transcript== | ==Transcript== | ||
− | + | {{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}} | |
− | |||
− | :[ | + | :[Text above panel:] |
:Astronomy Status Board: | :Astronomy Status Board: | ||
− | :[ | + | :[Text inside the panel:] |
− | + | :Moon Still There Gone | |
− | + | :Sun Still There Gone | |
− | + | :Stars Still There Gone | |
− | + | :Planets Still There Gone | |
− | + | :Galaxies Still There Gone | |
+ | :[In the above text, the instances of "Still There" are glowing in green, while the instances of "Gone" are in grey red, indicating the above-mentioned celestial bodies are still there.] | ||
− | + | :[Below Ponytail is looking at a telescope, while Cueball is pressing a button to operate the above-mentioned panel.] | |
− | |||
+ | ==Trivia== | ||
Small stars which have exhausted their hydrogen fuel without building enough heat to fuse carbon or oxygen, are theorized to eventually collapse into faint "{{w|white dwarf}} stars" which are of such low luminosity that they are unlikely to remain visible to the naked eye from the Earth's surface except at very close proximities. The Earth's sun, Sol, is generally expected to follow this progression as a low-mass {{w|main sequence}} star, during the latter period of its {{w|stellar evolution}}. Although some stellar models predict that relatively rapid collapses are possible, the long time scale over which stellar evolutions are believed to occur decreases the odds of observing any one specific star both before and after this transition. In this comic, individual stars are not listed; therefore "gone" is unlikely to be useful for the stars, because a great number of stars would be "still there" until well after the expected collapse of our own sun. | Small stars which have exhausted their hydrogen fuel without building enough heat to fuse carbon or oxygen, are theorized to eventually collapse into faint "{{w|white dwarf}} stars" which are of such low luminosity that they are unlikely to remain visible to the naked eye from the Earth's surface except at very close proximities. The Earth's sun, Sol, is generally expected to follow this progression as a low-mass {{w|main sequence}} star, during the latter period of its {{w|stellar evolution}}. Although some stellar models predict that relatively rapid collapses are possible, the long time scale over which stellar evolutions are believed to occur decreases the odds of observing any one specific star both before and after this transition. In this comic, individual stars are not listed; therefore "gone" is unlikely to be useful for the stars, because a great number of stars would be "still there" until well after the expected collapse of our own sun. | ||
− | + | One of the proposed outcomes of the ultimate fate of the universe is the {{w|Big Rip}}. If it's correct, all the items on the status board will eventually move from Still There to Gone, beginning with the most distant galaxies and proceeding to the the objects in our own solar system (although there will be hardly any time for the board to show Gone for the closest, especially the Moon). This scenario is dramatized in the short story "{{w|Last Contact}}" by Stephen Baxter. | |
− | |||
− | One of the proposed outcomes of the ultimate fate of the universe is the {{w|Big Rip}}. If it's correct, all the items on the status board will eventually move from Still There to Gone, beginning with the most distant galaxies and proceeding to the objects in our own solar system (although there will be hardly any time for the board to show Gone for the closest, especially the Moon). This scenario is dramatized in the short story "{{w|Last Contact}}" by Stephen Baxter. | ||
Collisions between celestial bodies are commonly postulated as a fundamental part of the formation of {{w|planetary nebula}}. Since most mass in the known universe is observed to have a relatively low {{w|albedo}}, the presence of numerous unlit, massy bodies of planetary scale and smaller is strongly indicated. This is corroborated by measurements of orbital deflection detected in many visible stars, hinting at the possibility of large planets orbiting around them, unseen due to distance & low luminosity. The possibility of one or more local planets being "gone" could be attributed to unpredicted collision with another object of similar mass or equivalent velocity. Such a collision is one possible explanation for the sudden & catastrophic disintegration of Earth's moon, Luna, in the novel {{w|Seveneves}} by Neal Stephenson. This hypothetical event forms the premise of this book, during which Earth's whole sky becomes occluded by dust raised by millions of impacts across its surface & eventually by the constant incandescent descent of lunar debris itself. Again however, a single collision with any planet besides the Earth would not remove ''all'' the "Planets" from the Earth's visible night sky, so "gone" remains unlikely to be used for that category of celestial objects. | Collisions between celestial bodies are commonly postulated as a fundamental part of the formation of {{w|planetary nebula}}. Since most mass in the known universe is observed to have a relatively low {{w|albedo}}, the presence of numerous unlit, massy bodies of planetary scale and smaller is strongly indicated. This is corroborated by measurements of orbital deflection detected in many visible stars, hinting at the possibility of large planets orbiting around them, unseen due to distance & low luminosity. The possibility of one or more local planets being "gone" could be attributed to unpredicted collision with another object of similar mass or equivalent velocity. Such a collision is one possible explanation for the sudden & catastrophic disintegration of Earth's moon, Luna, in the novel {{w|Seveneves}} by Neal Stephenson. This hypothetical event forms the premise of this book, during which Earth's whole sky becomes occluded by dust raised by millions of impacts across its surface & eventually by the constant incandescent descent of lunar debris itself. Again however, a single collision with any planet besides the Earth would not remove ''all'' the "Planets" from the Earth's visible night sky, so "gone" remains unlikely to be used for that category of celestial objects. |