this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2025
755 points (96.7% liked)

Science Memes

12469 readers
1403 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 hours ago

I'll tell you what's definitely unsettling;

The fact that if you kiss a mirror, you'll only ever kiss yourself on the lips.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

My favorite fun astronomy fact is that a transit like this (Venus, but still) is how we managed to figure out our distance to the Sun in the 1700s

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 hours ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 hours ago

The side of Mercury we're seeing in the pic is quite cold

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 hours ago

I tried wiping the dust off my screen 😭

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 hours ago

So conditioned that NDT is talking bullshit and people dunking on him that I had to read it a couple of times to understand it.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 hours ago

No, you morons! That's your thumb with the close ad X under it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 hours ago

I mean it would but I’ve known the scale of the universe since i still threw myself birthday parties…lol

[–] [email protected] 12 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

From that picture, it looks like you'd be on mercury and look up, see nothing but sun, But realistically it's 60% closer than earth

looks kinda like this from the surface

[–] [email protected] 15 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (1 children)

Im struggling to parse this. The picture of the sun with the tiny dot when compared with the artists impression you posted. It just wont click together. How can the sun appear so big from the telescope compared to mercury but be so small from mercury's perspective?

Edit. Actually i think it clicked. Mercury is so far from us and so smalkl that it appears like a small dot through that telescope even when zoomed in enough to see the sun that closley. Its actually still really far from the sun but our perspective and that flat picture makes it seem like its about to be consumed by the sun. If it was off to the side the distance would be more clear.

So more like this

S---‐-------------------------------M--------------------------------------V----------------------------------E

Than

S---M‐---------------------------------------------------------------------V----------------------------------E

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 hours ago

Yep, zoom and narrow aperture really messes with perspective.

It's kind of opposite of the tilt shift photos that make real life things look fake.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

so is basically the whole sky sun on mercury during the day?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 12 hours ago

Naw, it only looks about three times as big from Mercury. Bake you to death right quick though

[–] [email protected] 5 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

And this is why I worship the Sun

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 hours ago

But pray to Joe Pesci, right? You pray to Joe Pesci, right?! RIGHT?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 18 hours ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

Screenshot from Rick and Morty S6E9 Bring forth the shears of stumping!

[–] [email protected] 10 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

This reminds me of that part of that space opera I read where there was a nomadic colony on mercury which needed to always be moving at exactly the right speed to stay on the dark side of the terminator.

[–] BalderSion 11 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

Wow. I was in middle school and had to do a creative writing assignment, and I wrote a science fiction short story set in a colony on that boundary of Mercury. I thought Mercury was tidal locked. I was praised for my creativity.

I was today years old when I found that Mercury is not tidal locked.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 hours ago

The 3:2 resonance Klear references is considered a type of tidal locking.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 hours ago

Same here. I was so going to ackchyually that guy, but I did a quick check before and turns out there is a day/night cycle.

Apparently one Mercury day takes exactly two Mercury years due to some fuckery involving "3:2 spin-orbit resonance" which is something I'm too drunk to comprehend right now.

Gonna be an interesting wikipedia binge at work tomorrow tho

[–] [email protected] 10 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

That was in the Red / Green / Blue mars trilogy, one of my favorites. Though I think I've seen the concept in other works as well.

Basically the temp difference between day / night caused contraction of the rail tracks, pushing the whole city forward so it was always just ahead of dawn.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

The nomadic colony got expanded on in KSR's novel 2312. I don't actually remember much about it in the Mars Trilogy.

But I've seen the concept before in an old EU Star Wars novel, one of the Solo books maybe, where Lando was operating something similar as his new venture.

And before that maybe mentioned by Sagan. And before that...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

I'll have to get 2312, haven't heard of that one. Same universe?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

Adjacent, probably. Very similar, and seems to purposefully be set a hundred years after Blue Mars ends (2212).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 16 hours ago

Damn, that's a great idea. I gotta go back and finish that series.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Looks like a dead pixel.

The scale of the universe continues to blow my mind.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 17 hours ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

This series is great. Thanks so much! I am getting sucked into a black hole of these videos.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 16 hours ago

Always happy to introduce a new person to Kurzgesagt

load more comments
view more: next ›