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If you live in Los Angeles (around 33°52’N, roughly the latitude of Hermosa Beach) the black hole in V404 Cygni passes over you each day. On Christmas Day it will be directly overhead around 2pm.
In a program called SpaceEngine, the observable universe is simulated, based on everything we know so far.
You can fly around freely and if you start at earth, you’ve got this blue beautiful ball right next to you and an ocean of stars all around you.
First I flew towards the sun with the speed of light. Earth got tiny quickly, but then you realise: it would still take you 8 full minutes to get to the sun at this speed.
So you pump the speed to millions of light years per second (luckily we can ignore the laws of physics).
You stop at a random place, some hundreds of millions of light years away from earth.
And then you realise what astronomers mean when they say: the universe is basically homogeneous. It looks basically the same everywhere.
And in fact you once again see an ocean of stars in front of you. Just as if you were back at earth. However as you turn around, there is of course no earth, but the same view of an ocean of stars and earth is unimaginable far away. You are alone in an infinite ocean of light.
This program truely messed with my head (in a good way).
query@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Imagine growing up on a tidally locked world, living in the day, until you wander off for long enough to discover the night.
m0darn@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy has an alien species that evolved on a planet (Krikkit)with constant thick dust clouds.
Isaac Asimov also mused about ribbon worlds. ie tidally locked planets with a habitable zone in the twilight regions.
I seem to recall also reading a story about a species on a ribbon world but because of precession had a 10,000 year (or so) day. They had a constant slow migration and eventually started finding the ancient forgotten ruins of their own society.
Also nightfall by Asimov.
whelks_chance@feddit.uk 1 year ago
Can you remember the name of that 10000 year book? It’s been ages since I’ve read some hard science of the type
uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 year ago
I’m glad Asimov also thought of The Long Street or Eternal Dusk I wondered how wide the strip of settleable territory might be, say on a earth-sized tide-locked planet.
The moon is tide-locked to the earth, but wobbles back and forth, so a tide locked world might also have a day / season cycle where the fringes get extra hot / cold.
ProfessorProteus@lemmy.world 1 year ago
What a terrifying thought! I imagine there’s some other sapient race out there that has experienced that.
Now think about the kinds of predators that evolved in constant night, which those people found while exploring the darkness. Then they develop telescopes and discover other worlds on which the night moves…
1024_Kibibytes@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Unless the animals have developed a way to move for miles every day, there should be predators who are adjusted for the night side, and predators who are adjusted for the day side that would be well known and defended against from the prey on their side. For a sentient species, figuring out how to defend against one or the other shouldn’t be too hard.
What would be harder to defend against would be those predators who live in the twilight areas are close to both day & night.
whelks_chance@feddit.uk 1 year ago
Wouldn’t the temperature difference and UV (and any other spectra) immediately boil/ kill them?
nukeworker10@lemmy.world 1 year ago
There’s an old Roger Zelazny story with that exact premise called Jack of Shadows
Turun@feddit.de 1 year ago
I have read a short story about a world with like 9 suns and 3 moons. It’s day all the time, except once every 2000 years, when there is a total solar eclipse. So every 2000 years society falls into chaos, most of the population kills themselves and only rich people, who can afford enough candles/fire or people who are passed out drunk survive the eclipse. At the time the story takes place one astronomer/scientist notices the pattern in their history and like predicts it or something.
Sadly I do not know the link. If anyone recognizes the story I would love to read it again.