Cure for writer's block?
I've been researching (i.e. Wikipedia-ing and Googling) atmospheric sciences and figured out a way to explain how the moon and stars, but not the sun, can be blocked from view, as well as how the ground could lose communication between satellites and the space station, but not affect radio communication, weather, or commercial flights.
Conclusion: there is some kind of barrier, in which the fake stars are embedded, within the ionosphere, around the bottom edge of the thermosphere, ~350-400km. Below communications satellites and the orbit of the space shuttle and space station. Long-wave (AM/FM) radio waves still bounce off the ionosphere D and E layers, but short-wave (ham) radio waves, which normally are reflected in the F layer of the upper ionosphere, are lost above this new barrier.
Moonlight and starlight is not strong enough to penetrate the barrier, but sunlight is (I really think that moonlight ought to still make it, since it's reflected sunlight and much stronger than starlight, but oh well). Geosynchronous satellites are way out of luck. Research satellites (and maybe military satellites?) in low earth orbit, ~120-300km, are still usable.
So, my cure for writer's block: Wikipedia and crayons!
ETA: Wondering what happens to contractors' stars when they fall, because no one talks about finding them (except for exactly two "meteor shards"). So I googled, and meteors burn up in the mesosphere...so my model still works, if the fake stars are located in the center of the ionosphere. Will falling fake stars fall at a great enough speed to totally burn up? I don't know. But the ionosphere is freaking huge, so Imma say yes =) Contractors' stars burn up like regular meteors, with one or two occasionally lasting long enough to hit the ground. But because they're contractor stars, not normal meteors, they have freaky Gate powers. It works. I'm happy.
Conclusion: there is some kind of barrier, in which the fake stars are embedded, within the ionosphere, around the bottom edge of the thermosphere, ~350-400km. Below communications satellites and the orbit of the space shuttle and space station. Long-wave (AM/FM) radio waves still bounce off the ionosphere D and E layers, but short-wave (ham) radio waves, which normally are reflected in the F layer of the upper ionosphere, are lost above this new barrier.
Moonlight and starlight is not strong enough to penetrate the barrier, but sunlight is (I really think that moonlight ought to still make it, since it's reflected sunlight and much stronger than starlight, but oh well). Geosynchronous satellites are way out of luck. Research satellites (and maybe military satellites?) in low earth orbit, ~120-300km, are still usable.
So, my cure for writer's block: Wikipedia and crayons!
ETA: Wondering what happens to contractors' stars when they fall, because no one talks about finding them (except for exactly two "meteor shards"). So I googled, and meteors burn up in the mesosphere...so my model still works, if the fake stars are located in the center of the ionosphere. Will falling fake stars fall at a great enough speed to totally burn up? I don't know. But the ionosphere is freaking huge, so Imma say yes =) Contractors' stars burn up like regular meteors, with one or two occasionally lasting long enough to hit the ground. But because they're contractor stars, not normal meteors, they have freaky Gate powers. It works. I'm happy.