So, Ice Ball or Venus. Seems like climate is more sensitive than we think. Man made impact or not, the whole system seems on a knifes edge of tipping towards the extremes. That we are living right now is rare in-between point.
[dead]
What made Earth a giant snowball 700M years ago? Scientists have an answer
51–60 of 193 posts
Re: What made Earth a giant snowball 700M years ago? Scientists have an answer
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are correct, but it's capitalism and the adrenaline kick. We are culturally conditioned folk, and all scripts about alien invasions that end up in movies follow a completely implausible scenario. Most don't even bother any longer to give a reason for invasion. I would blame the writers of those scripts, but movies without violence don't give the adrenaline kick and don't sell well. Here is an idea for any writers…
American viewers love gory violence, but get offended at steamy sex scenes. That makes no sense to me.
Ahh yes famously American media like Squid Games and Alice in Borderland are so filled with gory violence I can barely handle it. And American movies are famous for having so few steamy sex scenes in them that people are not constantly rolling their eyes at the “sex sells” mantra to explain their frequency.
Re: What made Earth a giant snowball 700M years ago? Scientists have an answer
#53Seems like a low risk approach for taking over a planet would be to just park a large shade between the planet and it's star then let it enter a deep freeze. Then you could just remove the shade and let the planet warm back up before settling down.
You have to make sure it doesn't drift away from the Langrange point, which is unstable…
What do you mean it's unstable? You orbit the Lagrange point, right? Sure you might have to spend some fuel maintaining the orbit, but we have a bunch of spacecraft at Earth sun L2 doing that just fine (e.g. the Webb). Is L1 less stable than L2 for some reason?
edit: SOHO is at L1
Re: What made Earth a giant snowball 700M years ago? Scientists have an answer
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
That'd make for a good story setup: aliens park a shadeship (c) at L1 and wait. They block out most but not all of the sun. After some time (months? years?), conditions on Earth become unbearable, so earthlings have to mount an attack. Kind of like the movie Sunshine, but with more believable physics. Edit: as a bonus, it could take place in ~50-100 years, when global warming has gotten worse. The aliens could disgui…
Love this idea for a story. As an alternative - it could be the oil producing countries, not aliens - seeking shade earth to disrupt solar and wind energy, and return to oil dominance.
And countries which use reliable sources of energy like nuclear would be unaffected. How curious...
Perhaps building unreliable energy infrastructure dependent on favorable climatic conditions is not the greatest idea. Especially if there's going to be major climate change. How's Germany doing again with all its solar lol.
Re: What made Earth a giant snowball 700M years ago? Scientists have an answer
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nah, you just need a simple Bond Villain Plot. Step One: build a machine that can cool the Earth, solving global warming Once and For All. Step Two: demand the governments of the Earth pay you $1 trillion to turn it off at the appropriate time.
I mean, a trillion dollars to solve global warming sounds like a pretty good deal to me?
That would be a good ending. The villain suddenly becomes the hero, but his evil purpose disappears and he gets depressed. :)
Re: What made Earth a giant snowball 700M years ago? Scientists have an answer
#56Seems like a low risk approach for taking over a planet would be to just park a large shade between the planet and it's star then let it enter a deep freeze. Then you could just remove the shade and let the planet warm back up before settling down.
Reminds me of this HN story from yesterday:
Re: What made Earth a giant snowball 700M years ago? Scientists have an answer
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nah, you just need a simple Bond Villain Plot. Step One: build a machine that can cool the Earth, solving global warming Once and For All. Step Two: demand the governments of the Earth pay you $1 trillion to turn it off at the appropriate time.
I mean, a trillion dollars to solve global warming sounds like a pretty good deal to me?
It's not solving if they can turn it back on, it's a subscription. The elite want renters, 'you will own nothing and be happy'.
It should give people pause that with all the push for more renewables in California and Germany, they now have among the most expensive electricity on Earth.
Re: What made Earth a giant snowball 700M years ago? Scientists have an answer
#58Seems like a low risk approach for taking over a planet would be to just park a large shade between the planet and it's star then let it enter a deep freeze. Then you could just remove the shade and let the planet warm back up before settling down.
That'd make for a good story setup: aliens park a shadeship (c) at L1 and wait. They block out most but not all of the sun. After some time (months? years?), conditions on Earth become unbearable, so earthlings have to mount an attack. Kind of like the movie Sunshine, but with more believable physics. Edit: as a bonus, it could take place in ~50-100 years, when global warming has gotten worse. The aliens could disgui…
> The aliens could disguise their motives for a while, claiming to be there to help counteract global warming.
Seemingly benevolent aliens just here to help us fix our mess, but ultimately just want to sneakily take our stuff, is fun trope. https://www.gateworld.net/sg1/s4/2010/
Re: What made Earth a giant snowball 700M years ago? Scientists have an answer
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
Okay, like what exactly?
"You're in the way of a construction project, sorry, but please evacuate the planet". The fake notice costs you next to nothing. "The plans for demolition have been available on Alpha Centauri which is only 4 light years away you know."
I like the idea of the solar system getting eminent domained for a scifi
Re: What made Earth a giant snowball 700M years ago? Scientists have an answer
#60Seems like a low risk approach for taking over a planet would be to just park a large shade between the planet and it's star then let it enter a deep freeze. Then you could just remove the shade and let the planet warm back up before settling down.
I wonder how that would look from a feasibility perspective...
Let's see - Earth's radius is 6,378 km.
Area exposed to the sun therefore would be 6,378 * 6,378 * 3.14 = 127,731,695 [1]
If you wanted to block just 1% of the light, that would take a shade of 1 million square kilometers, which would be equivalent to a shade that is 1,130 km on a side.
Seems like it would be tough to do given all the dust and rocks floating around the sun. Also, you're only covering 1%, which is much less than cloud cover.
I'd assume you'd aim to block at the equator since that would have the most direct impact on the intensity of the sun over the course of a year.
[1] - I'm calculating the projection as a flat surface here, so the numbers aren't exact but close enough.