Editing 1231: Habitable Zone
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===Pedantic Comments=== | ===Pedantic Comments=== | ||
| β | There are quite a number of issues (listed below) with the practical implementation of this prank, though of course they don't matter much in terms of the joke itself | + | There are quite a number of issues (listed below) with the practical implementation of this prank, though of course they don't matter much in terms of the joke itself |
*The telescopes used for this type of research are designed to view faint, distant objects. In the images that they produce, objects the size of telescopes are not visible. Therefore, the astronomer would not see the reflection of the telescope. | *The telescopes used for this type of research are designed to view faint, distant objects. In the images that they produce, objects the size of telescopes are not visible. Therefore, the astronomer would not see the reflection of the telescope. | ||
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*For the relative sizes of the Earth and Sun to be correct in the reflection, the mirror would have to be as far from Earth as the Earth was from the Sun. But even pointing to a mirror at a distance of the moon would require a very large one, probably more than one hundred kilometers (sixty miles) in diameter. | *For the relative sizes of the Earth and Sun to be correct in the reflection, the mirror would have to be as far from Earth as the Earth was from the Sun. But even pointing to a mirror at a distance of the moon would require a very large one, probably more than one hundred kilometers (sixty miles) in diameter. | ||
*A professional astronomer should be able to realize nearly instantaneously that they're not looking at an Earth-like, extrasolar planet (as should anyone, in fact, who is familiar with even the basic arrangement of Earth's continents and oceans), but instead Earth itself. | *A professional astronomer should be able to realize nearly instantaneously that they're not looking at an Earth-like, extrasolar planet (as should anyone, in fact, who is familiar with even the basic arrangement of Earth's continents and oceans), but instead Earth itself. | ||
| β | *A telescope of this size, or indeed any one employing a solid mirror rather than a massive disk of dust in space, could never see an extrasolar planet with this level of detail without | + | *A telescope of this size, or indeed any one employing a solid mirror rather than a massive disk of dust in space, could never see an extrasolar planet with this level of detail without unsurmountable engineering issues. |
==Transcript== | ==Transcript== | ||
