Vera "Not A Werewolf" Lycaon

so, we may have found our first moon orbiting another planet? advances.sciencemag.org/lens/a

it isn't confirmed yet (much like between the first detection of an exoplanet {1988} and the first confirmed one {1992, or '95 if we're talking main sequence stars}, this'll take years), but the evidence so far is well in favor of the object in question being a moon instead of a planet and honestly I'm excited as hell for this?

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Vera "Not A Werewolf" Lycaon

sure it's literally the easiest possible object to find of its type (a neptune-sized gas giant orbiting a superjovian at a great distance), but the fact that we've found something like this at all is kind of amazing

also it's a fucking -small gas giant orbiting another, larger gas giant-. that may very well have formed in place. if that's confirmed that bodes super well for finding like, actual habitable moons around gas giants in the future

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the Hearth :ms_agender_flag:

@Thaminga a gas giant orbiting a gas giant, I wonder if the smaller one also has moons and if so just how deep orbital mechanics will physically let you go. Moons orbiting moons orbiting moons.

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Vera "Not A Werewolf" Lycaon

@Felthry I could definitely see four steps down happening (massive, almost-brown-dwarf gas giant -> small gas giant -> Mars-sized rocky moon -> tiny asteroidlike moonlet), though that would take a pretty huge system to really work out and sheer luck to actually like, exist

maybe around like, a type A or B star

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always impermanent

@Thaminga @Felthry Now I'm wishing I'd taken screenshots of some of the buck-wild systems I've seen in Elite Dangerous (which claims to do a rough modeling of system accretion).

Here's one I found on a list of nearby Interesting Systems: edsm.net/en/system/bodies/id/2

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the Hearth :ms_agender_flag:
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@starkatt @Thaminga we should really try elite dangerous sometime, supposedly it's pretty good

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always impermanent

@Felthry @Thaminga I enjoyed it a lot! It's very, very pretty and gives a sense of scale I haven't seen anywhere else.

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the Hearth :ms_agender_flag:

@starkatt @Thaminga I'd expect a similar sense of scale as No Man's Sky?

Kerbal Space Program also does a pretty good job of making you realize how big space is but that's just one solar system and a pretty small one at that

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always impermanent

@Felthry @Thaminga Oh NMS left me *really* disappointed in terms of system modeling after coming from ED.

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the Hearth :ms_agender_flag:

@starkatt @Thaminga it does leave a bit to be desired but I can understand it for gameplay reasons

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always impermanent

@Felthry @Thaminga Yeah in Elite systems are Actual Size. You superluminal cruise faster when away from gravity wells but things like a distant binary can take ages to fly to.

Also there's the literal entire milky way galaxy to explore. hundreds of millions of systems.

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always impermanent

@Felthry @Thaminga This is how far I traveled, after 100 hours of gameplay, a good chunk of which was spent on long-rage exploration.

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the Hearth :ms_agender_flag:

@starkatt @Thaminga I mean, that's a _really long way_ to go in only 100 hours!

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always impermanent

@Felthry @Thaminga That was with a max jump range of somewhere a bit under 50LY.

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always impermanent

@Felthry @Thaminga That circle is a path, not an area.

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always impermanent

@Felthry @Thaminga If you really hustle you can do several jumps per minute. Even then it takes weeks of travel for dedicated players to get to Sagittarius A*.

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the Hearth :ms_agender_flag:

@starkatt @Thaminga The question remains: is it worth the time and effort to get there?

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always impermanent

@Felthry @Thaminga Depends on what you find fun?

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the Hearth :ms_agender_flag:

@starkatt @Thaminga fair point!

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always impermanent

@Felthry @Thaminga Go exploring and you can see some really beautiful things. Here's a (extremely remote) ring outpost in the Sadr Region nebula about 1.8kLY from Sol, with the North American and Pelican Nebulae in the background.

There's another screenshot from inside a planetary nebula that I haven't shared because I want to keep it *mine*.

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always impermanent

@Felthry @Thaminga And it all feels a lot more special when you have to really go a long ways for it, y'know?

Also uhh I realize now I kinda hijacked the thread. Apologies if that was obnoxious.

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Vloelei, Hopeful Animal ​:therian:​

@starkatt @Felthry @Thaminga SPACE
FOX

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Vloelei, Hopeful Animal ​:therian:​

@starkatt @Felthry @Thaminga Yeah, ED is seriously something I've been wanting to check out. They do some amazing, fascinating stuff

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always impermanent

@Felthry @Thaminga I was big on exploration but you can also do pew pew or commodity schlepping or tour guiding.

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