Re: The Mutants

Drone. wrote:
"Satan" <stopstaring@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:fmnjm6$l2c$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Why was the colonists' scientist surprised by the true cause of the change in temperature?

Is it really feasable that a planet with a highly elliptical 2000 year orbit could be habitable by human beings from Earth?


Earth's orbit is close enough to the sun for it's tilted axis to have an appreciable effect on the temperature throughout the year.
Once you get beyond the orbit of Earth, this effect drops dramatically. Beyond Jupiter, the effect becomes negligible, as you plunge to a temperature approaching absolute zero.
It is feasible that humans could live on such a planet, depending upon their level technology, needing to be far in advance of ours.

If the planet was orbiting a star like the Sun, its average distance from its star would be just a bit under 160x our distance from the Sun. But that's the average distance. If it got as close as the Earth does to the Sun, then when it is furthest away it would be more than 300x Earth's distance from the Sun. Neptune is only about 30x further away from the Sun than we are just for a sense of scale.

Not only would it get far from the star, but it would also spend the majority of its time far from its star - the speed of a planet varies in its orbit so only a few years would pass when it was in a nice cozy warm part of the orbit, and it would spend the majority of its time moving slowly in a deep freeze. (Kepler's 2nd law of planetary motion)

I haven't seen the Mutants in a long time, but the orbital dynamics and time spans don't really jive.

Actually I was thinking about the "science" of Doctor Who yesterday and perhaps that should be investigated a bit more....but who has the time now a days - oh, yeah, that's right, he does.

Later
Siobahn (Shabang) Morgan

.

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