Even if it doesn't crash into Earth, the fear remains; after all, a collision with even one of the thousands of satellites we have deployed would certainly not be good for Earth!

I was recently listening to a podcast that was talking surface level about a solar eclipse. A fun fact was mentioned that the sun is \~400x farther from the earth than the moon and also \~400x bigger than the moon which makes total solar eclipses possible. It was stated that this is completely by chance only.

I thought that would be incredible if that were simply a coincidence and tried to do some searching. My thought was that if this feature of the moon made life forming more likely, it would not be surprising for earth to have this feature.

Some googling and poorly sourced AI summaries seemed to state that there are Rare Moon hypotheses or something which say that the relative size and closeness of the moonake life more feasible due to tides and axis consistency. I struggled to find more. How much of this is well-documented science theories and what are some papers or videos on the topic I could check out further?

I had a crazy space idea — what do you think? 🚀🔭

I was thinking about this and wanted to ask people who know more about space whether it actually makes sense.

Imagine money isn't a problem and we can build basically whatever spacecraft we want.

What if we built a spacecraft with a huge telescope and really good cameras and sent it traveling through our Solar System?

Instead of staying near Earth, it would travel past the planets — Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and eventually even farther out.

The idea is that from Earth, we're always looking at the Solar System from basically the same place. But if we had a powerful telescope moving around the Solar System, we could look at planets, moons, asteroids, comets, etc. from completely different angles.

It could:

🔭 Take extremely detailed pictures and videos.

🌌 Take huge pictures showing the Solar System from much farther away.

🤖 Use AI to help navigate, avoid dangerous objects, and notice things that look unusual.

📡 Have small communication satellites placed along the way so the spacecraft can send information back toward Earth.

💾 And importantly, send the original/raw pictures and videos back too, instead of letting AI decide everything. AI could miss something that humans might notice later.

The spacecraft wouldn't necessarily need to stop at every planet. It could fly past them and use their gravity to help change its direction and continue farther into space.

I'm just wondering:

If money wasn't a limitation, would a giant telescope spacecraft traveling through the Solar System actually give us information and views that we can't get from Earth?

Or is there a major problem with this idea that I'm not thinking about?

I'd really like to hear what astronomers, engineers, or anyone knowledgeable about space thinks. 🚀

Hello. I was wondering if, somehow, someone could survive in space with no spaceship or spacesuit or anything of the sort, what would they see? Can they see the stars, is it nothingness? The other senses would be pretty helpful too!

(I'm writing a Loki fan fiction and it starts when he was falling through the void. I want to know what he'd experience when falling. Would he feel, see, hear, etc?)

I've always been fascinated by the sky and space equally as much as I do the ocean. I think it's human nature to be "explorers" and such, so it makes sense that they are both such a huge focus on media. My thought came to me because I was thinking about the natural circular motion of evolution and how humans would be more likely to find ways of surviving underneath the sea than it would be in space or another heavenly body (moon, Mars, etc). It's not that I'm against colonization of space, it's just that it makes more sense on a biological level that we first make a way that we can survive in the most abundant environment in our closest environment: the ocean. Water is what you use in nuclear plants to insulate radiation so it would only make sense that it would be the best place if things "went south" for humanity. Anyways.... that's my random thought on a random Thursday night. Much love and take care

I have been thinking about a possible way of exploiting the rotation of a celestial body to accelerate a spacecraft to very high velocities.

The basic idea is:

Instead of trying to accelerate a spacecraft to relativistic speeds entirely with conventional propulsion, could we use the rotational energy and angular momentum of a rapidly rotating celestial body as part of the propulsion system?

The starting point is the familiar relationship:

v = ωr

where ω is the angular velocity and r is the distance from the rotation axis.

On Earth, the surface at the equator already moves at about 465 m/s because of Earth's rotation. If a hypothetical object could remain synchronized with Earth's rotation at a much greater distance from the rotation axis, its tangential velocity would increase proportionally with radius.

This made me wonder whether the same principle could be applied to a much larger or faster-rotating celestial body.

For example, instead of Earth, imagine using something like Jupiter, Saturn, or an extremely rapidly rotating compact object. A spacecraft could theoretically be coupled to a rotating system associated with the body and gain angular momentum from it.

The concept I am imagining is not necessarily a physical cable extending millions of kilometres. That was my original thought, but I realize that such a structure would introduce enormous structural and gravitational problems.

I'm more interested in the underlying question:

Could a physically realizable rotating system around a celestial body transfer enough rotational energy/angular momentum to a spacecraft to produce a substantial fraction of the speed of light?

If so, this could potentially create significant relativistic time dilation for the spacecraft.

For example, if a spacecraft could reach 0.9c, 0.99c, etc., the crew would experience less elapsed time than observers on Earth.

Questions I'm trying to understand

1. Is there a fundamental limit to how much rotational energy/angular momentum could be extracted from a rotating celestial body for spacecraft propulsion?
2. Could a system analogous to a rotovator, momentum-exchange tether, magnetic tether, or other non-rigid structure accomplish something similar without requiring an impossible solid structure?
3. Would a rapidly rotating body such as Jupiter actually be useful for this, or would its gravity and atmospheric environment make the concept impractical?
4. Are there known mechanisms for transferring rotational energy from a planet/star/neutron star to a spacecraft that I should be studying?
5. At what point do orbital mechanics and relativity invalidate the simple v = ωr argument?
6. Could a sufficiently advanced version of such a system theoretically accelerate a spacecraft to, say, 0.5c, 0.9c, or 0.99c?
7. If planets are unsuitable, would rapidly rotating neutron stars or black holes provide a physically meaningful analogue?

I realize there may be obvious problems that I'm overlooking. I'm not claiming that this is a workable time machine. I'm trying to determine whether there is a physically valid propulsion concept hidden in the idea, or whether fundamental physics rules it out.

I'd particularly appreciate explanations involving angular momentum, energy conservation, orbital mechanics, relativistic effects, and structural/engineering constraints.

If there is already an established concept that answers this question, I'd also appreciate being pointed toward it.

Thanks!

I literally cannot find any information other than google’s stupid ahh AI overview that is not a trustworthy source of information in the slightest. Everywhere I go it says what day it's going to happen but never what time. When is the best viewing time for the meteor showers?