KnightOfWords

8 ms·

31.
by KnightOfWords 7y ago
Some of them, yes.
32.
by KnightOfWords 7y ago
Flummoxed is pretty fair in this case. The expectation is that any methane released into the Martian atmosphere should persist on long timescales. Either there is a unknown process which scrubs it quickly or previous measurements were in er
33.
by KnightOfWords 7y ago
Yes, we're using a telescope the size of the Earth to look at an object the size of our solar system in a galaxy about 55 million light years away. It's an infinitesimally small patch of sky. On the other hand, the jet from the M8
34.
by KnightOfWords 8y ago
I'd recommend talking to people on an astronomy forum, such as https://stargazerslounge.com/ or https://www.cloudynights.com/ , lots of knowledgeable and helpful people on there. To give you some idea o
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by KnightOfWords 8y ago
Distance covered during reaction time scales linearly with speed, while distance covered under braking goes up exponentially.
36.
by KnightOfWords 8y ago
Remarkably, the flight endurance record was set in a Cessna 172 and stands at 64 days. It was refuelled daily from a moving truck. https://disciplesofflight.com/flight-endurance/
37.
by KnightOfWords 8y ago
The LSST, which goes online (hopefully) next year, will greatly improve our ability to detect faint transient objects such as Oumuamua. It's expected that a number pass through the inner solar system each year, if we can find a and com
38.
by KnightOfWords 8y ago
> That said, the criticism above is very scarce on details. What exactly is the nonsense about mathematical concepts that he is objecting to? There are examples in the thread I linked to. > But the strongest argument going for Clark,
39.
by KnightOfWords 8y ago
A quick word of caution. For anyone who might be interested in astrophotography I really wouldn't recommend any of the tutorials on the clark-vision site. This is what the co-author of an astronomical image processing program had to sa
40.
by KnightOfWords 8y ago
Well, that's no surprise. Their plan was essentially to hold a televised execution while lacking the budget to build the scaffold. Here's a technical assessment of the viability of their plan: https://scienceblogs.com&#
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by KnightOfWords 8y ago
We badly need to move towards more sustainable farming practises. Pesticides are not the only problem, topsoil erosion is another. The question is: how do we create incentives for farmers to improve their practices in the race-to-the-bottom
42.
by KnightOfWords 8y ago
> Maybe not surprising, but worth noting anyway just how pessimistic these stories are. That remains to be seen I'm afraid, the long-term carrying capacity of the planet is unknown. The green revolution has allowed us to feed 7 bill
43.
by KnightOfWords 8y ago
Ethan Siegal's articles are usually re-published on Medium a few days later: https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang
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by KnightOfWords 8y ago
Tundra will not make very productive farmland due to poor soil quality.
45.
by KnightOfWords 8y ago
No-deal is the least popular option among voters, given the high risk of tanking the economy. If the government and parliament can't agree a deal I think the only sensible way forward is another referendum.
46.
by KnightOfWords 8y ago
Their atmosphere can be thought of as 'hot near-vacuum'.
47.
by KnightOfWords 8y ago
> Our only hope is a technical solution. There are many technical mitigations to the problem, but a technical solution is well out of reach I'm afraid. The problem with carbon removal/storage and the like isn't that it&#x2
48.
by KnightOfWords 8y ago
> I think the consequences of food scarcity will be social unrest and political chaos. I also expect increased overfishing and slash & burn agriculture: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slash-and-burn#Ecological_imp
49.
by KnightOfWords 8y ago
Depends what you mean by 'runaway climate change'. It takes some time for climate to stabilize, even if we stopped all carbon emission now it would take a few decades for the planet to reach equilibrium. We've certainly reach
50.
by KnightOfWords 8y ago
> It’s the unprecedented suddenness of this climate change that makes it doubtful organisms will be able to adapt. Another wildcard is how much damage humans may inflict on ecological systems in a desperate search for food, when crop yie
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by KnightOfWords 8y ago
> A supernova remnant would either be a white dwarf... A small correction, white dwarfs are not produced by supernovae but by main sequence stars running out of fuel.
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by KnightOfWords 8y ago
> What I don't like about the "cleared its orbit" criterion is that it's something you can't tell from looking at the object itself. Dwarf planet is a helpful term in some contexts but not others. The solar syste
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by KnightOfWords 8y ago
> The 'cleared it's orbit' thing is also arbitrary. Not really, the degree to which a body has cleared its orbit can be calculated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clearing_the_neighbourhood > Pluto
54.
by KnightOfWords 8y ago
Casually speaking, it's a planet - a big roundish thing orbiting the Sun. But when talking about the solar system it can be useful to distinguish between planets and dwarfs in some contexts. The 8 planets grew massive enough to 'b
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by KnightOfWords 8y ago
The orbit isn't well known, too short an observation arc, but a rough one has been calculated. It probably reaches somewhere between Uranus and Neptune, but not Saturn.
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by KnightOfWords 8y ago
This object is currently the most distant detected but Sedna's highly eccentric orbit takes it much further from the Sun. Planet Nine's orbit, if it exists, takes it somewhat further away from the Sun than Sedna.
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by KnightOfWords 8y ago
People in flammable houses shouldn't complete the fire triangle?
58.
by KnightOfWords 8y ago
I had a shock when, the day after seeing that episode, I read a news item about China's proposed social credit system.
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by KnightOfWords 8y ago
> You're a victim of highly biased reporting/information. I don't think this report on Facebook's role in the Rohingya massacres should be dismissed as biased reporting: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news&#x2F
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by KnightOfWords 8y ago
> There's an obvious possibility that people ignore because it's not very sexy: maybe life is common, but sending messages clearly over interstellar distances is pointless and extremely expensive. That's the simplest solut

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