I mean this does have a practical application, I think. The relative masses of moons to planets does imply the moons ability to sweep junk out of the way before it hits the planet.
This is not based on mass but on volume. For example the moon is only 1% of the earth’s mass yet considerably less dense therefore it makes a thicker layer.
Pluto-charon shouldn’t count since it is more akin to a binary planetary system than a planet-moon system. Charon and Pluto are so close in size that the system has a barycenter outside of Pluto. This means instead of Charon orbiting a point inside Pluto, Charon and Pluto orbit a point about 800 km above Pluto’s surface.
One of my all-time favourite facts is that solar eclipses are actually a very rare thing to happen in space. There is no reason why but our moon just happens to be the right size/distance to have this happen.
I’ve never seen one in person, but the next one is on the 8th of April crossing Mexico and the US. If you have the chance and are able, go check it out, if only to gloat on an internet stranger longing for his first total eclipse.
This is incorrect. The moon is moving away from the earth and will stop. At some point in the future the tidal forces will balance out and the earth-luna system will be tidally locked. From that point on they will remain locked in orbit neither moving away or towards one another unless some other large gravitational force perturbs them (e.g. an extra solar planet wandering through the solar system and passing by earth-luna).
And keep in mind that the difference between a total eclipse and a partial eclipse is massive. It’s worth it to find a spot that is in the line of totality.
I got to see one about 7 years ago. Made a whole vacation of it, and was not disappointed. In the darkness, all the birds stopped singing. And to top it off, at the motel I stayed there was a cleaning lady yelling at me to get back into my room because this was a sign from her god saying this was the end of days.
One passed over my area while I was at university, and the professor whose class we were meant to be in just said the day beforehand that he wasn't even going to bother scheduling anything for the first hour because he didn't expect anyone to be in. There's a famous hill-top cemetery in the city, and sure enough I saw basically all of my classmates there too
Fuck yes, enjoy bud. I’ve read people not using high enough rated welding goggles and getting eye damage though. I’d stay on the safe side and get appropriate solar eclipse glasses. You’ll be looking directly at the sun for several minutes after all.
Putting on our moon armour could solve a lot of problems. It’s not my most favourite solution though.
PS: Gonggong?!
Edit: dwarf planet. Discovered in 2007 and named after a god in the chinese mythology:
Gonggong was ashamed that he lost the fight with Zhurong, the Chinese god of fire, to claim the throne of Heaven. In a fit of rage, he smashed his head against Buzhou Mountain, one of eight pillars holding up the sky, greatly damaging it and causing the sky to tilt towards the northwest and the Earth to shift to the southeast, which caused great floods and suffering.
Context, apparently the word “set” has 430 meanings in the Oxford dictionary. So there’s a lot of ambiguity. It’s very confusing but I think we give as good as we get in that regard.
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