Our universe is so rad!

[Strat]

It's basically a larger and much, much, much colder Earth.

Will there be sick pow there, brah?

[nyquillyn]

Doubtful RM will make the transition to Titan. Good riddance.

[Kaius]

It's basically a larger and much, much, much colder Earth.

Will there be sick pow there, brah?

I don't know, Strat

[Kaius]

Doubtful RM will make the transition to Titan. Good riddance.

How long you think before interstellar travel is made possible?

[nyquillyn]

No idea. Earth needs to hit the reset button again. I'm hoping Yellowstone or a superbug wipes us out kinda soon.

[E.H. Ruddock]

Fuck Mars in its stupid red ass. Titan will likely be humanity's second home. Imagine what an awesome site it'll be to stare up and see Saturn filling up the sky.

Titan doesn't have life on it just like anything else in our solar system. So we'd still have to live in pods and wear suits to go outside. No thanks.

Some think Titan could very well be inhabitable after our sun becomes a red giant. The temps could become livable and its chemical make-up would change drastically.

So in ten million years?

[Norah]

Fuck Mars in its stupid red ass. Titan will likely be humanity's second home. Imagine what an awesome site it'll be to stare up and see Saturn filling up the sky.

Titan doesn't have life on it just like anything else in our solar system. So we'd still have to live in pods and wear suits to go outside. No thanks.

Some think Titan could very well be inhabitable after our sun becomes a red giant. The temps could become livable and its chemical make-up would change drastically.

So in ten million years?

Also, there's probably going to be an intense transition period when neither is habitable.

[nyquillyn]

Not true. The sun's transition into a red giant will actually take several million years. We'd have plenty of time to leave Earth for Titan (or some other place).

[Norah]

Not true. The sun's transition into a red giant will actually take several million years. We'd have plenty of time to leave Earth for Titan (or some other place).

But at what point will Titan become habitable? Before Earth becomes uninhabitable?

[nyquillyn]

We'd establish enclosed stations on Titan, then leave them behind as it became more habitable. It's about the long game.

[Kaius]

We will probably develop some kind of bomb to speed up the process.

[E.H. Ruddock]

Hopefully that Matthew mconagey movie coming out this fall will answer all of our questions about the future of human beings.

[nyquillyn]

Mystery of Death Valley's 'Sailing' Stones Solved

As long ago as the 1940s, the mysterious moving rocks of Death Valley National Park's Racetrack Playa have stumped scientists. How stones as heavy as 35 pounds (16kg) can bulldoze their way across a completely level plain -- leaving tracks in their wake -- is a fascinating conundrum, one which has now been solved by a team of American researchers.

Using GPS tracking devices embedded in the rocks, time-lapse photography, weather stations and mountains of patience, a research group led by Richard Norris and his cousin James Norris have narrowed the miracle down to a perfect blend of frozen rainwater and light winds.

The team observed, over a period of years of time-lapse footage, that most rock movement events occurred during cold conditions. After installing weather stations to monitor conditions on the playa, they later concluded that large sheets of melting "windowpane" ice were being pushed by winds between 7 and 10 miles per hour, taking the rocks with them.

This had been posited before as a possible explanation for the sailing stones, along with dust devils, flooding and good old alien activity. But crucially, the rocks are rarely embedded in the ice sheets, merely pushed along with them once a bank of fractured ice builds up on the upstream side of the rock, adding enough mass to force the rock to slide along the wet ground beneath the melting sheet.

The lightbulb moment flickered languidly on between November 2013 and February 2014 when a large pond of rainwater formed in the playa basin, freezing and thawing for weeks and causing multiple movement events. After these events, the team tracked the trails of several large rocks finding them to take parallel paths despite being up to 60m apart, suggesting a single massive sheet of ice influencing their movement.

The conditions required for such events is very precise, giving them a Goldilocks (Goldirocks?) quality. Too much ice and the wind can't move the sheet. Too much wind and the ice fractures too easily on the rocks. Too much water and the rocks won't move at all.



http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/201 ... ling-rocks

[Alex]

don't you wish you could be a sailing stone, t2b?

[E.H. Ruddock]

Why did it take decades to figure that out? When I saw a story on it I immediately thought to myself wind and rain or ice...

[Kaius]

Keep it up Ruddo, you're doing great

[E.H. Ruddock]

Keep it up Ruddo, you're doing great

This is the first time you've ever posted down on me, K. That's a real shame.

[Kaius]

Keep it up Ruddo, you're doing great

This is the first time you've ever posted down on me, K. That's a real shame.

No way bro. Nothing but love.

[E.H. Ruddock]

Keep it up Ruddo, you're doing great

This is the first time you've ever posted down on me, K. That's a real shame.

No way bro. Nothing but love.

Meh. I know belittling sarcasm when I see it.

[tommymtcom]

Keep it up Ruddo, you're doing great

This is the first time you've ever posted down on me, K. That's a real shame.

No way bro. Nothing but love.

Meh. I know belittling sarcasm when I see it.

Ruddock, you are loved. Never doubt that.