Gimme Some Space - All Comments

re: Astronomy Scale Comparisons

Amaryllis Place — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 14:23:15 GMT

Antares is BIG. Its radius is about 800 times bigger than our Sun. If you put it in our solar system, the outer surface would be between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Venus is certainly closer in size to Earth and gravity, but it is blanketed with clouds of sulfuric acid. The atmosphere is extremely dense (92 times that of Earth) and composed of mostly carbon dioxide. The cloud cover generates the strongest greenhouse effect in the solar system causing surface temperatures over 860 °F. I wouldn't want to be there. Florida is hot enough for me.

re: Astronomy Scale Comparisons

DMI — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 16:29:51 GMT

My god, is Antares big enough to occupy the entire orbit of the Earth? It's interesting how Venus is so much closer in size to Earth than Mars is. Everyone talks about settling Mars, but wouldn't settling Venus be more practical because of similar gravities?

re: A New Ring Discovered Around Saturn

kurt — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:14:50 GMT

That's amazing!!

re: Interesting Facts about the Moon

Amaryllis Place — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 17:53:19 GMT

That is very cool. Thank you for the link.

re: Interesting Facts about the Moon

willburns1 — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 15:06:31 GMT

I thought since you liked space so much you would enjoy this. It's called google moon. http://www.google.com/moon . It's like google earth but you guessed it, on the moon.

re: Interesting Facts about the Moon

kurt — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 20:57:42 GMT

Thank you very much for your in-depth answer. The idea that everything ends is hard for me. It's such a beautiful world and universe.

re: Interesting Facts about the Moon

Amaryllis Place — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 18:53:41 GMT

A very good question! Scientists have predicted that the moon's orbit will stablize in about 15 billions years at 1.6 times its current distance. However, our Sun will turn into a red giant in about 5 to 7 billion years and engulf everything up to and including Earth, so we won't be around to see that happen. Also, sadly, our oceans will evaporate away long before our Sun turns into a red giant, so we won't see that either.

re: Interesting Facts about the Moon

kurt — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 18:30:51 GMT

Do you know at what point in theory the Moon would lose it's orbit?