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"Space circle" could describe pretty much everything and anything outside the atmosphere, no? "Sphere" was probably too technical.
by h2odragon 5y ago
"Space circle" could describe pretty much everything and anything outside the atmosphere, no? "Sphere" was probably too technical.
- mhh__ 5y agoWho says it's spherical?
- h2odragon 5y agoGood point! Astronomy is the study of "Space Blobs"
- bee_rider 5y agoThis article cites a paper. I was looking at one of the papers they cite in that paper, and they had a nice explanation in the introductory paragraph. > Circular features are well-known in radio astronomical images, and usually represent a spherical object such as a supernova remnant, a planetary nebula, a circumstellar shell, or a face-on disc such as a protoplanetary disc or a star-forming galaxy. They describe these things as circles because that's how they show up on the radio telescopes. They are being precise about what they detected, I think. These are hard signals to even pick up, after all, no need to introduce a made up interpretation to further confuse things.
- wolverine876 5y agoGood point. Why is so much in gravityless, directionless (i.e., no up and down) space shaped like a disc rather than a sphere? Look at the orbits of planets around the Sun - why are they mostly in the same plane? Look at galaxies.
- nawgz 5y agoSpin
- DiggyJohnson 5y agoA sphere spins in a circle <- probably the most abstract answer possible, but correct as I see it.
- wolverine876 5y agoAh, you mean that spin is (two-dimensional?), and that these things form along the 'equator' of the spin? That is, spin creates an 'equator', and the equator is a circle not a sphere, and the orbiting objects align with the equator? Are our solar system's planets aligned with our sun's equator? (Sorry, the mathematical/physical terms are escaping me.)
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- inamberclad 5y agoGenerally anything acting under a force causing it to be pulled together and possibly another force causing it to be pushed apart.