Deep Space Calling

[dakyon]

I've been a little behind on my space blog reading, but I wanted to mention a couple of cool articles. It may now be possible to pinpoint a star about to go super nova a couple of hours in advance of the event by detecting an increased presence of UV photons. That's not a whole lot of time on a cosmic scale, but catching these events in the act

Comments

[ghoststrider]

I read about that. These super-Earths are genuinely interesting. Do you think any of them would be habitable for human life?

[dakyon]

They are too close to the star and thus too hot by our standards.

[ghoststrider]

But what if they were in the Goldilocks ring? What I'm trying to figure out is if humanity could live on an Earth that was twice as big as Sol III, and with a big more mass to boot. Gravity is the first thing to consider; I'm not sure what else would go into the equation.

[dakyon]

Goldilocks ring? Regardless of the size of the planet involved, outside of the habitable zone, the issue becomes the usefulness of water in liquid form, so I'm not sure I follow what you're saying.

[ghoststrider]

I'm wondering if humans could survive on a planet that has more mass than Earth; would the higher gravity cause harm to the human body, or would we all just accept that we have to go on the South Beach diet?

[dakyon]

Above a certain limit, I think the strain on the circulatory system would be a decisive factor. I don't know what kind of limit that would be, but I think typically humans can withstand 4 or 5 g's, but only for short periods of time.

[ghoststrider]

True.

ZOMG, is that icon from Exile?

[dakyon]

The icon is from Ultima IV - Quest of the Avatar.

[ghoststrider]

I thought the Ultima series, was, you know, 3D?

[dakyon]

Utlima IX was 3D - but Ultima IV was from around 1986, well before all the fancy graphics. This was also before automappers became common in games. Nerd that I am, I actually had a taped together several sheets of graph paper and used colored pencils to for that.

[ghoststrider]

That's pretty cool. I take it you're the one who assassinated Lord British, then? :D

[dakyon]

Only once, in Ultima VII - I lured him to the courtyard in the castle and then double-clicked on the sign above the north entrance . . . it was an easter egg one of the programmers put into the game.

But that was the only time - I swear :-p