Earth is a Special Snowflake

October 4, 2014 11:05 AM

World Space Week 2014: Unusual Facts About The Solar System

1. Earth is Special

Earth's atmosphere is completely unique and the only one in our solar system able to support life. There is no other planet which has breathable oxygen in its air and oceans on its surface.

What else makes Earth a special snowflake? The fact that a TV show gave birth to the reality we are currently living, including the fact that we embraced the space age. This was essentially officially recognized when Majel Barrett and her husband, Gene Roddenberry, were honored in 2002 by the Space Foundation with the Douglas S. Morrow Public Outreach Award for their work creating awareness of and enthusiasm for space.

More World Space Week Links:
WorldSpaceWeek.org

Find a Space Week Event Near You

World Space Week Wikipedia page

Nine Coolest Twitter Accounts for space fans

Also: Previously.

posted by Michele in California (26 comments total)

Earth's atmosphere is completely unique and the only one in our solar system able to support life.

And our solar system is one of trillions and trillions in the observable universe alone.
posted by Dumsnill at 11:14 AM on October 4, 2014 [2 favorites]

the only one in our solar system able to support life.

Well, citation needed. It's not like we've tried. With sufficiently advanced engineering you could probably build a microbe that could float around Venus' upper atmosphere quite happily, or hide somewhere deep inside Mars.
posted by BungaDunga at 11:35 AM on October 4, 2014

They don't need no stinkin' oxygen.
posted by IndigoJones at 11:39 AM on October 4, 2014 [3 favorites]

It looks like the theme of World Space Week this year is satellite navigation, GPS satellites. Fascinating things. I was just reading more about them to answer some friend's questions about satellite and relativity.

Clocks on GPS satellites should appear to tick slower because of Special Relativity but in fact the clocks tick faster because of General Relativity.
posted by vacapinta at 11:39 AM on October 4, 2014 [1 favorite]

Earth's atmosphere is completely unique and the only one in our solar system able to support life.

Well, let's rephrase that as "Earth's atmosphere is the only one in our solar system able to support life that evolved for billions of years in this exact atmosphere. As for life that evolved for billions of years in different atmospheres, Earth's atmosphere is probably poison." *


* Indeed, Earth's current atmosphere is poison for almost all Earth-life that evolved for the first two billions years here.
posted by brambleboy at 11:40 AM on October 4, 2014 [11 favorites]

Tautologies are tautological because they are tautologies.
posted by blue_beetle at 11:52 AM on October 4, 2014 [15 favorites]

Indeed, having the oxygen and methane in an atmosphere is evidence of life, since methane and oxygen quickly react, leaving none of less abundant gas in an atmosphere. One or both must be constantly replenished for them to be present at the same time.
posted by haiku warrior at 12:05 PM on October 4, 2014 [1 favorite]

Damn, brambleboy was way ahead of me.

It's almost like one could write a science fiction novel wherein a very very old alien visits the Earth and bemoans the passing of the proud and ancient culture that was wiped out by an eco-catastrophe when some dangerous new life form started poisoning the atmosphere.

Of course one would probably be sued by Larry Niven.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 1:04 PM on October 4, 2014 [4 favorites]

That site seems really scummy and the article is pathetically thin and lazy.

However, it did remind me of a pretty cool article from the College Math Journal: Phoebe Floats!
posted by Wolfdog at 1:05 PM on October 4, 2014

And here's another look at the question of floating Saturn.
posted by Wolfdog at 1:10 PM on October 4, 2014 [1 favorite]

SAVE THE PLANET
It's the only one with
BEER
and
CHOCOLATE
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:15 PM on October 4, 2014 [6 favorites]

and chocolate stout!
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:16 PM on October 4, 2014 [2 favorites]

Yes but what about Brockian Ultrastout?
posted by Wolfdog at 1:18 PM on October 4, 2014

That site seems really scummy and the article is pathetically thin and lazy.

World Space Week starts today. Yet it is shockingly hard to find a substantive article related to the subject.

Feel free to top me by posting meatier links I overlooked. :-)
posted by Michele in California at 1:19 PM on October 4, 2014

i will acknowledge that star trek gave birth to the reality i am currently living when i have ready access to replicators, holodecks, FTL travel, transporter beams, phasers, tricorders and hot alien partygirls.
posted by bruce at 1:30 PM on October 4, 2014 [1 favorite]

Earth's atmosphere is completely unique and the only one in our solar system able to support life. There is no other planet which has breathable oxygen in its air and oceans on its surface.

And we're determined to fuck it up no matter how much it costs. We've gotta meet next quarter's projections, all else be damned. The shareholders demand it!
posted by InsertNiftyNameHere at 2:29 PM on October 4, 2014 [1 favorite]

Yes but what about Brockian Ultrastout?

Dude, that's only available in an entirely different dimension!
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:45 PM on October 4, 2014

Worth the trip, I find.
posted by Wolfdog at 3:39 PM on October 4, 2014 [2 favorites]

The fact that a TV show gave birth to the reality we are currently living,

there was a tv show that combined the worlds of stranger in a strange land and stand on zanzibar as written by philip k dick?

i must have missed that one
posted by pyramid termite at 5:58 PM on October 4, 2014 [1 favorite]

I plan to celebrate World Space Week, but not at work.
posted by Rob Rockets at 8:07 PM on October 4, 2014 [2 favorites]

FTFA: 9. Mars's Mountains
[Picture] The moon has the highest mountain in our solar system(ISRO/Ted Stryk)
The rocky surface of Mars is covered in mountains and valleys, and the planet has both the tallest mountain and the deepest valley in all of the solar system.

Besides the fact that the picture attributed to "ISRO/Ted Stryk" is not the moon, but Mars, DID ANY EDITOR BOTHER READING THIS BEFORE IT WAS PRINTED?
posted by IAmBroom at 1:42 PM on October 5, 2014

Tautologies are tautological because they are tautologies.

Hey, just because it's a tautology doesn't mean it's not true.
posted by strangely stunted trees at 3:25 PM on October 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

I hate to break it to you, but you're not that special; it just looks that way because you haven't built any real ships yet and nobody has contacted you. Normally we would have by now (things tend to go badly for Stage 3 aggressive/expansionist species like you without a little outside help) but there have been some special circumstances. You guys are in for a big surprise one of these days—there are interesting times ahead.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 5:24 PM on October 5, 2014 [2 favorites]

Just a pin-head amount of the sun's raw material could kill a person from 160 kilometres away.

What does that even mean? If you magically took a pinhead of matter from the sun, you'd have about 15 milligrams of hydrogen. I'm pretty sure that that couldn't kill you from 160 kilometres, unless it hit 15 milligrams of anti-hydrogen, which seems like stretching a point quite a long way.
posted by Ned G at 5:04 AM on October 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

Sorry, I should have written 150 micrograms of hydrogen above.

Looking into it (if any one else is interested), it looks like even if it did annihilate with 150 micrograms of anti-hydrogen, it would transfer about 0.15 joules of energy to someone 160 kilometres away, so thermally, that amount of matter at that distance isn't ever an issue, if it emits energy isotropically (which I reckon is a fair requirement, as we're talking about the sun). That only leaves ionising radiation as a hazard. Assuming that the hydrogen annihilates as above, and turns entirely into gamma rays, it would equate to an absorbed dose in the region of 1 - 10 milligrey at 160 km, which wouldn't be close to killing you (we're about a factor of a thousand away from radiation sickness type doses), but it would raise your chances of getting cancer by 0.001% or so.

As I can only get in to increase a chance of developing a disease by 0.001% under really idealised conditions (and by hand-waving a bunch of antimatter into existence), I'm calling bullshit on their claim.
posted by Ned G at 5:33 AM on October 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

Thanks for the 9 twitter accounts. I already had @astro_reid, but @ISS_Research is great. If we are going to have a collision with space rocks, there's not much we can do about it, but maybe @lowflyingrocks will help me get laid in the event. Thanks!
posted by xtian at 5:18 PM on October 7, 2014