this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2025
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Science Memes

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[–] jlh@lemmy.jlh.name 115 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

This small circle is the sun, absolutely dwarfed by the earth taking up the rest of the frame. Definitely unsettling.

[–] Hossenfeffer@feddit.uk 61 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

You shouldn't stare too long at this photo with your naked eye or you'll go blind.

[–] EffortlessEffluvium@lemm.ee 18 points 5 months ago (2 children)

What if I give my eye undies?

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[–] windowsphoneguy@feddit.org 79 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Ackchually, that's just a photography of mercury, not the actual planet on your screen.

[–] mEEGal@lemmy.world 26 points 5 months ago

username checks out

[–] Alenalda@lemmy.world 59 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Ironically mercury while being the closest planet to the sun, isn't the hottest planet in the solar system. Venus takes that title because of its atmosphere holding so much co2. Im sure its fine were putting so much of it in our atmosphere.

[–] Vinny_93@lemmy.world 21 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Yeah I prefer summer to winter so if we get summer and super summer now I would enjoy that until I'm dead and after that, why should I care?

/s just in case.

[–] FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 16 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Finally my investment on Arctic Beachside property will pay off.

[–] Vinny_93@lemmy.world 5 points 5 months ago

The beach is great. The only issue is that on days worth going, lots of other folks will be there.

We heat up the planet by 4 or 5 degrees, it's gonna get much less crowded. It'll be like a perfect, permanent vacation.

[–] lauha@lemmy.one 23 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Mercury is like 30-50 sun's diameters away from the sun. This perspective makes it look like it's almost touching.

Size scale matches though

[–] jaybone@lemmy.world 5 points 5 months ago

Yeah this perspective is weird. It makes it look like the sun takes up 90% of the sky on mercury. That can’t be right though.

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[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 21 points 5 months 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

[–] Mr_Dr_Oink@lemmy.world 14 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 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

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 7 points 5 months 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.

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[–] TheGiantKorean@lemmy.world 16 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Looks like a dead pixel.

The scale of the universe continues to blow my mind.

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[–] lowleveldata@programming.dev 13 points 5 months ago (8 children)

I'm sorry but my socks are still on. 100% wool.

[–] The_Che_Banana@beehaw.org 9 points 5 months ago

Well, my socks are off.

....so are my pants

and underwear

and shirt

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[–] Juice@midwest.social 11 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I guess because of perspective, Mercury being millions of miles closer to the camera than it is to the sun, the actual proportions would have the planet being much smaller by comparison

[–] nexguy@lemmy.world 10 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Mercury's apparent size in the sky when close to us is about twice the size as when mercury is in the other side of the sun from us. So mercury would appear about 75% the size it is in this photo of it were next to the sun (so about the same distance away as the sun is).

[–] Juice@midwest.social 4 points 5 months ago

Neat! Thanks!

[–] thespcicifcocean@lemmy.world 11 points 5 months 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@real.lemmy.fan 11 points 5 months 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.

[–] Klear@lemmy.world 5 points 5 months 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

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[–] Weirdfish@lemmy.world 10 points 5 months ago (4 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.

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[–] JayDee@lemmy.sdf.org 10 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Trying to wrap my head around how incromprehensively large even just our sun is always makes me feel dizzy.

We are not even a pale blue dot to most of the universe, and when we disappear nothing will know or remember us.

[–] SpacetimeMachine@lemmy.world 11 points 5 months ago (1 children)

My fav sun fact is that it burns 400 million tons of hydrogen each second, and will be doing that for billions of years. That's 400 million tons of the lightest possible element there is. Just absolutely insane how gigantic the mass of the sun is.

[–] Carrolade@lemmy.world 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

My fav is just that the sun is, all by itself, 99% of the total mass of our solar system. Most of the rest of that 1% is Jupiter.

[–] addie@feddit.uk 11 points 5 months ago

You're understating it a bit there - the sun is 99.86% of the mass of the solar system by itself. To the nearest whole percent, the solar system consists of 100% "the sun". To the nearest 0.1%, it's 99.9% the sun and 0.1% Jupiter.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_mass

[–] SandmanXC@lemmy.world 7 points 5 months ago (3 children)

TIL the sun is dark brown. Crazy the tricks our minds play.

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[–] sik0fewl@lemmy.ca 6 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Proof that light is a particle and not a wave?

[–] PunnyName@lemmy.world 4 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Yes, but also both. (a simple example follows)

Think of it like you being at work or home. If I check your house, either you're there, or you aren't. If you're there, you're at home, simple. If not at home, you're at work.

Same with your work: either you're there when I check - or you aren't, therefore at home.

But before I check either location (it's understood that you are only in 1 of those 2 places), you are effectively in both places, and neither place, all at once.

[–] sik0fewl@lemmy.ca 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)
[–] Thorry84@feddit.nl 4 points 5 months ago

Checkmate physicists

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[–] Zozano@aussie.zone 6 points 5 months 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.

[–] Slovene@feddit.nl 6 points 5 months ago

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

[–] DarkCloud@lemmy.world 6 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Science Journalists; Neil Degrasse Tyson claims dead pixels may actually be Mercury sized planets!

[–] PanArab@lemm.ee 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

And this is why I worship the Sun

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[–] HeliosPhoebus@lemmy.world 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)
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[–] JimVanDeventer@lemmy.world 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (3 children)

How is the next transit of Venus not until 2117? That blows my socks’ mind. Seems like that should be happening very regularly.

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[–] Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 4 points 5 months ago

My socks were appropriately blown off but I still didn't get invited.

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