The landscape of exoplanet systems is a wasteland: from an orbital point of view, the majority of systems look like the beat-up survivors of giant dynamical battles. The reason for this is simply that their original configurations were not “Lindy” — that is, not built to last indefinitely.
The time capsule must serve as a beacon. Any other civilization that detects it should immediately suspect that it is of artificial origin. And it needs to survive for countless billions of years.
The Sun will puff up to gargantuan size
As big as Earth’s orbit. And fill up our skies
The red giant Sun will eat Venus alive
But Mercury’s first. It will not survive.
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…
Sometimes removing the outer atmosphere from a Neptune-like planet can reveal an ocean paradise!
A while back I wrote a series of posts called How planets die. It was about all the ways planets can be sterilized or destroyed. I even made a “planetary death scale”. Gruesome stuff. Let’s liven things up with a new mini-series on Second-Chance Planets. These are planets that get a second chance at life. …
Where would we be without the occasional asteroid crashing into the Earth?
Just like people, stars age. Their planets go along for the ride and are often killed or maimed in the process….
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:…
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…
Gas giants have murdered rocky planets (or their building blocks) around ~5 billion stars in our galaxy! (Usually by dropping them onto their Suns!).
Just like people, planets are born and they die. We know how people die. But google “how planets die” and you’ll get the wrong answer.