Posted on 04/15/2025 5:50:02 AM PDT by Red Badger
WEBB PING!......................
“Zwicky Transient Facility at Caltech’s Palomar Observatory in San Diego, California.”
Sounds like they’d get more customers if they located it in Downtown Los Angeles instead.
Does this void my insurance?
No, but expect your rates to continue to go up until you file a claim, at which time it’ll be denied and the policy cancelled...
But thank you for all your premiums up to that point..
The ring-around death ?
Efforts to save that planet were all in vain. It’s inhabitants couldn’t see what their problem was because they were too close to it. /s
Their problem was Global WARMING!....................
Good thing it didn’t suck in Uranus.
What amazes me is how the hell did they find this candidate event?
Didn’t they have a Go Fund Me?
I think we have new respect for the gravity of the situation, but it was a drag for that gas-bag of a planet.
Global warming will be a problem for Earth in about a half a billion years, when the sun's luminosity increases to the point where life on earth cannot survive.
Check your homowner's insurance policy to see if a rider for that is included.
The Sun will eventually become a Red Giant when it’s supply of hydrogen runs low and the force of gravity is insufficient to keep the surface at its present diameter.
It will swell up to the orbit of Mars, consuming everything within that space: mercury, Venus, Earth, the Moon and every other rock and dust particle.
Mars will become the new Mercury, a rocky planet hellhole of unimaginable heat, IF it doesn’t get consumed in the maelstrom itself......................
Your post hits on the key words. Gravity and drag.
I dont mean to get all geeky, but there is a fundamental question that I dont see addressed here. Correct me if I missed it. But for the planet to spiral in, one of two things has to happen:
A) the suns gravity has to increase, which means more mass has to come from somewhere (i dont know how that occurs), or
B) the planet has to encounter drag in its orbit, and a lot of it for a spiral to occur. This implies an atmosphere in space, which is normally a vacuum. Without drag, the planets orbit has no reason to decay.
I am not saying this is a non-believable report, but I am skeptical without some theory explaining it. Are they saying that space around this gas giant is as dense as an atmosphere? If so, it would be a 1 in 1 trillion chance that we just happen to be looking at this 1 in a billion stars at this exact moment in time to see this event.
“ This implies an atmosphere in space, which is normally a vacuum..”
Not near a star it isn’t. Charged particles and solar mass ejections would provide drag.
L
This death spiral may have taken a billion years..............
I wont disagree in general to your statement, but its the amount of drag that needs to be explained. We send probes around the sun all the time now. Mercury is in the same orbits its been in for billions of years.
If this planet was so close to its sun that it spiraled in like described, then this star and its planets must have been in the formative stages and this was never really a stable planet.
The story leaves a lot to be explained.
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