Second chance planets 3: cosmic rain on dried-out worlds
Have you ever been lost in the desert?
Stumbling along the sand dunes, the Sun beating down on you, your mouth sticky and dry. All you can think about is water…
‘Oumuamua: was it aliens? (spoiler: no)
Imagine this. You’re drinking your morning coffee. A small blob zooms at top speed through the kitchen, into the hall and out an open window. You only catch a quick fuzzy glimpse before it’s gone. What was that thing? What’s your first guess? A neighborhood cat? A squirrel? Maybe something more exotic like a raccoon…
Comet Interceptor!
A space mission to intercept an Oort cloud comet — or, if we’re lucky, an interstellar object like ‘Oumuamua.
How planets die: pulverized in a deluge of asteroids and comets!
Where would we be without the occasional asteroid crashing into the Earth?
How planets die: roasted, toasted and swallowed by their evolving stars!
Just like people, stars age. Their planets go along for the ride and are often killed or maimed in the process….
How planets die: climate catastrophe!
If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason. — Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey This series is about how planets die — it is introduced here. Earth is a cosmic freaking paradise. Just look at our neighboring planets:…
How planets die: Fried by tidal volcanoes
If you ever drop your keys into a river of molten lava, just let them go because, man, they’re gone. — Deep thoughts by Jack Handey This series is about how planets die — it is introduced here. What do you think of when you hear the word tides? Ocean waves? The Moon? Maybe sitting…
How planets die: When good Jupiters go bad
Gas giants have murdered rocky planets (or their building blocks) around ~5 billion stars in our galaxy! (Usually by dropping them onto their Suns!).
