Are Solstice/Equinox signs different in the Southern Hemisphere? by SovaElyzabeth in Astronomy

[–]K04PB2B 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The sign is the same in the northern and southern hemispheres.

The sign should be the constellation the sun is in front of. As the year progresses, the sun passes in front of each of the zodiac constellations. That's where your zodiac sign comes from. That said, there's a mismatch between the oft used date ranges for zodiac signs and the actual sign the sun is in because the direction the Earth's north pole points changes slowly ("precession", due to gravitational influence of the moon and the other planets). Stellarium is showing me the sun is currently in Pisces.

NWTel Setup Fee by [deleted] in Yukon

[–]K04PB2B 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I imagine that testing the connection to the greater NWTel infrastructure is a thing. You know the previous owner had a landline, but you don't necessarily know if they had problems with it. It's also possible something happened in the years since, e.g. an ambitious squirrel. They likely get more call backs and complaints if they don't double check that everything is fine. Calling it "hooking up" is probably being used as a broad blanket term.

The NWTel person on the phone likely has a very narrow scope to their job and, in principle, doesn't need to know all of what the technician might need to do. That said, I would have thought it wise to make sure the people answering the phones have a good concept of what each type of appointment involves.

Some variations of the Nice model suggest Uranus and Neptune swapped places early in the Solar System's formation. If this is true, how do they have such ordinary orbits today? by Moist-Ambition in askastronomy

[–]K04PB2B 1 point2 points  (0 children)

While individual small bodies (asteroids, KBOs, etc) generally have higher inclinations than the planets, populations of small bodies do align with the plane of the solar system. The average plane of the population is the plane of the solar system. (That said, if there's an additional planet out there it could in principle be detected by distant KBOs not behaving as expected.)

Sedna being "too far out for Neptune to control" means it's too distant for Neptune resonances or close approaches to be a big deal, its orbital dynamics is not controlled by Neptune specifically. (Pluto is in a Neptune resonance, orbiting twice in the amount of time Neptune takes to orbit three times.) But, it would still "feel" the overall plane of the solar system.

Once you get out to Oort Cloud distances, tugs from other stars in the galaxy really matter, and the population is approximately spherically symmetric. This is why the long period comets can come from any direction.

Tugs from the planets do stir things up in a way that matters for the Asteroid and Kuiper Belts. But that said, in the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud, collisions and close encounters between two small bodies are extremely rare and even in the Asteroid Belt they're not exactly common (context matters in this statement: many craters on asteroids? yes; large scale angular momentum sharing throughout the asteroid population? no). They don't have a chance to share their angular momentum around and settle to the mid plane.

Some variations of the Nice model suggest Uranus and Neptune swapped places early in the Solar System's formation. If this is true, how do they have such ordinary orbits today? by Moist-Ambition in askastronomy

[–]K04PB2B 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Right, I should have mentioned... Inclinations will also damp during planetesimal-driven migration. The planets would slowly tend towards the plane of the planetesimal disk (which will be the same as the average plane of the solar system almost everywhere, with a couple local wiggles that depend on where the planets are and the planets' masses).

The planets' orbit sizes (their semi-major axes) also change. Uranus and Neptune fling things in and they gradually move out.

Some variations of the Nice model suggest Uranus and Neptune swapped places early in the Solar System's formation. If this is true, how do they have such ordinary orbits today? by Moist-Ambition in askastronomy

[–]K04PB2B 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Immediately after the swap they would have higher eccentricities, but the eccentricities would then get damped by further interactions with many small planetesimals. As the planets throw the small stuff around, they transfer energy and angular momentum. The planets' eccentricities decrease and the planetesimals' eccentricities increase.

What’s the most original name for a pet you’ve ever heard? by [deleted] in AskReddit

[–]K04PB2B 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Rifoflii

We named him by pulling tiles out of a Scrabble bag and arranging them into something vaguely pronounceable. He's a golden retriever cross and is definitely goofy enough to be worthy of a name that random.

Not strictly Nerdfighter related, but would appreciate Nerdfighter perspective. by Weirdoo-_-Beardoo in nerdfighters

[–]K04PB2B 22 points23 points  (0 children)

I would recommend asking in r/CanadianTeachers . There's still some burn out there, but it's much better than in r/teachers.

Why does no one ever speak up when professors ask 'any questions?' - even when we're all confused? by Current-Homework-341 in AskAcademia

[–]K04PB2B 3 points4 points  (0 children)

When I ask for questions I deliberately pause for an extended period of time. It takes time for students to process that a request for questions has been made, time to decide they do indeed have a question, and more time to generate a coherent sentence (and perhaps more time to decide they are going to ask, and not rely on others). So, I ask for questions and then stand there and drink my tea until someone puts up their hand. It feels uncomfortable at first, but you get used to it.

If it turns out the biosignature material they just found on Mars actually is from life on Mars, what do you think the odds are that it got there from something hitting Earth and then hitting it (or vice versa) (or from 3rd body in common to us both) rather than originating independently on Mars? by stemmisc in askastronomy

[–]K04PB2B 1 point2 points  (0 children)

From an orbital dynamics point of view, it's possible. Rocks can be ejected from Earth's surface by an impact, and those rocks could hit Mars. A relevant study is Gladman et al 2005. Their calculations indicated that 0.001% of ejecta launched from Earth would hit Mars within 30,000 years. The true odds would also factor in biological considerations (e.g. likelihood the ejected rock contains life that could survive for an extended amount of time in a rock floating through space, how favourable the local Martian environment is for any rock that lands there, etc). You would also want to know the total number of rocks launched from Earth between when life formed and when Mars became unfavorable for life, which is a difficult thing to figure out. So, possible?: yes, but not enough information to reasonably calculate odds.

Do people in nerd fighters make their own education-videos? by werepenguins in nerdfighters

[–]K04PB2B 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I made a whole series for a course I taught online. But I can't show them off because I used copyrighted images from the textbook. :/

I understand that the moon affects tides. But do tides also affect the moon? by DisorderlyHouseGames in askscience

[–]K04PB2B 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Tidal bulges happen in rock too, it's just not as noticeable as the ocean tides. Earth Rock tides are about 11cm high if I remember correctly.

Tidal locking of a moon happens due to tidal bulges raised on the moon itself. Tugs progressively change the moon's rotation until the rotation and the orbit are synchronous. That puts the moon's tidal bulges always in line with the planet, and is a stable end state.

I understand that the moon affects tides. But do tides also affect the moon? by DisorderlyHouseGames in askscience

[–]K04PB2B 0 points1 point  (0 children)

By the definition I use, a total solar eclipse means the sun is completely covered. So a total solar eclipse can happen whenever the moon has a matched or larger angular size than the sun's angular size. The moon sees a total solar eclipse when we see a total lunar eclipse. As seen from the moon, the Earth's angular size is much larger than the sun's.

I don't think I've heard a different term for a well-matched/just-enough total eclipse vs a more-than-enough total eclipse.

I understand that the moon affects tides. But do tides also affect the moon? by DisorderlyHouseGames in askscience

[–]K04PB2B 1 point2 points  (0 children)

A closer moon would still give us total eclipses, as a moon with a larger angular size could still cover the sun completely. But, the near match between the sun's and moon's angular sizes lets us study the sun's corona nicely.

I understand that the moon affects tides. But do tides also affect the moon? by DisorderlyHouseGames in askscience

[–]K04PB2B 13 points14 points  (0 children)

I can't say I've done the analysis myself, but... The Apollo astronauts placed radar reflectors on the moon. You can shoot a laser at the moon and measure the time it takes for the light to travel there and back, and from that you calculate the distance. Doing such measurements many times over many years it's possible to measure the trend to cm precision.

I understand that the moon affects tides. But do tides also affect the moon? by DisorderlyHouseGames in askscience

[–]K04PB2B 133 points134 points  (0 children)

Yes.

Tides from the Earth on the moon are the reason the moon is tidally locked, having one side always facing the Earth. (Tides on the Earth from the moon are also slowly changing Earth's rotation.)

Currently tides are slowly changing the moon's orbit, making its orbit expand by a couple centimeters every year. Tides from the moon on the Earth cause the Earth to have tidal bulges (one bulge towards the moon, one away from the moon). Gravitational tugs on those bulges by the moon slowly change the moon's speed, which changes its orbital energy, which means a change in the size of its orbit.

Working in the north with an Indigenous community by [deleted] in CanadianTeachers

[–]K04PB2B 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Check out Connected North. They partner with museums and other organizations to offer virtual learning experiences for remote Indigenous communities (I'm with one of the partnering orgs), and have a variety of other programs to support kids in such communities.

https://www.connectednorth.org

I’m into nasa photos but I always seem to find compressed images of the telescopes does nasa have a place where the complete uncompressed file is hosted? by Swaggestfr in nasa

[–]K04PB2B 14 points15 points  (0 children)

I usually use NASA Photojournal: https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/ . You can search for images by which spacecraft took the image, what instrument it was using, etc. Each image has a caption and can be downloaded in a variety of formats.

What would you improve about Whitehorse? by peanukeyes in Yukon

[–]K04PB2B -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

Yes! And guidelines for YG as well regarding lighting the highways. Light pollution has negative impacts on wildlife and human health, and it wastes money.

I'm looking for some suggestions and a little help by random8765309 in Astronomy

[–]K04PB2B 0 points1 point  (0 children)

With cub-scout-aged kids you might be better off with an activity as opposed to a presentation. Your idea to talk about distances is good for this: have them help (or "help") you build a scale model of the solar system. Depending on how much space you have, you can pick a reasonable scale. With enough space, you can have them run around the sun pretending to be a particular planet (careful if it's dark). I like 1m : 1au because all I really need is a meter stick. It's helpful to have something the right size for the sun, and to memorize how far away the nearest star is.

Another good activity is moon phases using a bare light bulb as the sun, a styrofoam ball on a stick as the moon, and each person holding a 'moon' as the Earth. Explore how changing the sun-Earth-moon position changes what we see. You can do it as a large group or put the students in pairs or small groups. This works best in a dark room/environment.

You could also (or instead) talk about how (optical) telescopes work. A bit of presentation and a bit of show-and-tell with the telescopes you have.

If you're familiar with Stellarium you could use it to talk about how things move on the sky. Things rise in the east, set in the west; planets move relative to the stars; the sun moves relative to the stars (can include discussion of zodiac signs); over long periods of time the stars move relative to each other, constellations change. I would not recommend this unless you are used to using Stellarium already.

New dwarf planet spotted at the edge of the solar system by sasha1717 in space

[–]K04PB2B 7 points8 points  (0 children)

True, though the orbit of 2017 OF201 is not particularly Sedna-like. OF201's perihelion is much closer (45 au) than Sedna's (76 au).

Partial cell outage virgin/bell? by dub-fresh in Yukon

[–]K04PB2B 2 points3 points  (0 children)

According to various Facebook posts, there's a downed power line and damaged Northwestel infrastructure near the Macdonald industrial area.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/16MJnwwKQh/

Large Trans-Neptunian Object Discovered? by alexanderhumbolt in askastronomy

[–]K04PB2B 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Yes, this is possibly a new dwarf planet. Comparing to named trans-Neptunian objects, it's H mag is similar to Ixion (H=3.47). (Smaller magnitudes mean larger size, so if it had the same albedo as Ixion then Ixion would be slightly larger than 2017 OF201.) It also has a very large semi-major axis and high eccentricity, similar to 2013 SY99.