https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/18c5sl2/ask_anything_wednesday_physics_astronomy_earth/
created by AutoModerator on 06/12/2023 at 15:00 UTC
126 upvotes, 34 top-level comments (showing 25)
Welcome to our weekly feature, Ask Anything Wednesday - this week we are focusing on **Physics, Astronomy, Earth and Planetary Science**
Do you have a question within these topics you weren't sure was worth submitting? Is something a bit too speculative for a typical /r/AskScience post? No question is too big or small for AAW. In this thread you can ask any science-related question! Things like: "What would happen if...", "How will the future...", "If all the rules for 'X' were different...", "Why does my...".
Please post your question as a top-level response to this, and our team of panellists will be here to answer and discuss your questions. The other topic areas will appear in future Ask Anything Wednesdays, so if you have other questions not covered by this weeks theme please either hold on to it until those topics come around, or go and post over in our sister subreddit /r/AskScienceDiscussion , where every day is Ask Anything Wednesday! Off-theme questions in this post will be removed to try and keep the thread a manageable size for both our readers and panellists.
Please only answer a posted question if you are an expert in the field. The full guidelines for posting responses in AskScience can be found here[1]. In short, this is a moderated subreddit, and responses which do not meet our quality guidelines will be removed. Remember, peer reviewed sources are always appreciated, and anecdotes are absolutely not appropriate. In general if your answer begins with 'I think', or 'I've heard', then it's not suitable for /r/AskScience.
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If you would like to become a member of the AskScience panel, please refer to the information provided here[2].
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Past AskAnythingWednesday posts can be found here[3]. Ask away!
Comment by LifeOfTheParty2 at 06/12/2023 at 16:45 UTC
9 upvotes, 2 direct replies
I keep hearing about the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs, it hit and shot up so much materiel that reentered the earths atmosphere that it caused the surface temperature of the earth to heat to over 500 degrees fahrenheit causing massive global fires, then I hear that the dust blocked the sun and cooled the earth causing temperatures to drop. How long would the earth have maintained the high temperatures that would have killed most everything? Was it hours, days, weeks? Then how long was the dust winter? How long after the asteroid hit did the earth return to normal livable temperatures?
Comment by StandardSudden1283 at 06/12/2023 at 18:24 UTC
5 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Taking into account underreporting of emissions and other ecological damage, what is the scientific consensus on just how bad the coming decades will be in terms of food, water and shelter access for:
Those in the USA
Those in the rest of NATO
Those in BRICS nations
and those throughout the rest of the world?
If that's too socio-political then could someone expand on the extents of projected ecological destruction in those areas?
Comment by DiamondWalker1 at 06/12/2023 at 18:50 UTC
4 upvotes, 1 direct replies
If living things had never appeared on Earth, what would its surface be made out of? The dirt that covers most of the world is composed of organic matter. If said organic matter were not present, would the rock underneath the ground have been left exposed, or would another kind of soil have taken its place?
Comment by DavidT64 at 06/12/2023 at 23:24 UTC
4 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Some planets such as Jupiter and Neptune are called gas giants. Is it impossible to land a spacecraft in these planets? Would the craft just fall through the planet?
Comment by contextproblem at 06/12/2023 at 18:23 UTC
5 upvotes, 1 direct replies
For those who study exoplanets, what would be a beyond a reasonable doubt sign of life that we could look for?
Comment by flagstaff946 at 06/12/2023 at 17:22 UTC
3 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Orbitals?! A recent thread on r/askscience raised some interesting points from comments that I never got closure one.
Are the orbitals spherical harmonics? If so, and with HUP, is there truly no pure state, e.g. 3s, rather, an infinite sum of weighted harmonic terms? Akin to Fourier terms for example.
Comment by garrettj100 at 06/12/2023 at 18:23 UTC
3 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Comment by gr8Brandino at 06/12/2023 at 16:45 UTC
5 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Say you have a closed room. Inside is perfectly reflective. No light cam escape this room. You turn on a light, and then turn it off. Does the room still go dark if the light has no where to be absorbed?
Comment by reddita-1 at 06/12/2023 at 17:36 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
If all water on earth stopped, so no ocean currents etc, what would happen? Would it return to ocean currents as we know them now and how long would it take?
Comment by platypodus at 06/12/2023 at 18:52 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
What are the most current hurdles on quantized space?
Comment by OpenPlex at 06/12/2023 at 18:59 UTC
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
When watching videos by professors of classical and quantum physics, I've gotten the impression that newer models are effective in greater energies than the previous models they upgrade. For example, general relativity covers greater energy (Mercury's precession in gravity from the sun's much greater energy) than in Newton's gravity, and quantum field theory which accommodates relativistic speeds covers more energy than the original quantum mechanics.
Is that the trend? Also, do the new theories reuse much of the older model's equations and make some tweaks? (whether small or major)
Comment by [deleted] at 06/12/2023 at 18:38 UTC
3 upvotes, 2 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by logperf at 06/12/2023 at 17:49 UTC*
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
There are those who interpret the evidence of random variations at the quantum level as evidence of parallel universes. Though this is of course quite debatable.
The most important lesson I learned from the statistics class is that, while a single random event is completely unpredictable by definition, the aggregate of many occurrences of a random event is quite predictable if you know the probability distribution. Throw a coin 10,000 times, it's practically impossible that you'll get 55% or more faces. It will be much closer to 50-50 and I'm ready to bet all my savings on that.
So, my speculation: if those random quantum variations were really caused by parallel universes, at the macroscopic level those other universes would be exactly identical to ours becase what we see macroscopically is the aggregate of a lot of random microscopic events.
What do the physicists of reddit think of this speculation?
Edit: for the purposes of defining "exactly identical" consider everything that can be measured without getting down to the microscopic level
Comment by just_writing_things at 06/12/2023 at 15:11 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Do you think quantum gravity will be solved in our lifetimes, and if not, what do you speculate is the likely timeframe? Centuries?
And a follow-up: do you think any of the current approaches to quantum gravity are on the right track?
Comment by IrritableGourmet at 06/12/2023 at 19:32 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Death Valley is below sea level and one of the hottest places on Earth. If a Panama Canal sized canal was dug between the Gulf of Mexico and Death Valley, how much water would it lose per day in evaporation **and** what would the result be on the surrounding areas to the East given the influx of moisture-rich air?
Comment by JiN88reddit at 07/12/2023 at 01:47 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Suppose I take a dog, insect, or any other kind of species (SpeciesA) from one part of the world to another different part and introduce it to the same species or anything similar there...what would happen? Would SpeciesA be integrated into it's own kin or eliminated because it's not similar?
Comment by Candles63 at 06/12/2023 at 19:17 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Our solar system is moving around (orbiting) our galaxy in a relatively flat plane. Is the orbital plane of our solar system planets in the same plane as the sun's orbital plane around the center of the galaxy? What is the difference in angles of the planes?
Comment by thegoldenboy58 at 06/12/2023 at 19:17 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
What are the effects of a supernatural boiling sea on Earth?
I am working on a story where due to a disaster in the planet's recent history (ten years before the present) a tectonic plate under the sea started to diverge, releasing magma from the mantle. Because of supernatural crystals that exist within the mantle, the magma released is far hotter than what can naturally occur and is constant, thus also heating up the surrounding water.
Since the planet is Earth-like, I will use Earth as an analogue for its possible effects. If a boiling sea the size of the Great Lakes as described appeared in Point Nemo, what would be its effects of the weather, ocean currents and global climate?
Additional: What would happen if the boiling sea appeared in the Atlantic Ocean, smack-dab in the equator between South America and Africa?
If islands formed in the sea from the eventual cooling of lava, how would the boiling sea around the islands affect their structure?
Comment by bakhesh at 06/12/2023 at 19:49 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
I have a small garden, but even still, cutting the grass and hedges produces about a ton of garden waste every year. A fair amount of that weigh is captured carbon, isn't it?
How can I dispose of that waste so that the carbon doesn't just go straight back into the atmosphere?
Comment by Anarchaeologist at 06/12/2023 at 20:14 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Saw a reference to abiotic petroleum this morning. I was thinking that it's not necessarily impossible, more likely comparatively scarce on Earth, and harder to find than fossil petroleum.
What are the chances of say, Titan, having lots of abiotic petroleum?
Comment by user4517proton at 06/12/2023 at 20:22 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
How much new energy is required to elevate the estimated 3 billion people in poorer countries to an industrialized civilization like the richer countries?
Comment by RoyalAlbatross at 06/12/2023 at 21:27 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
How does diffusion lead to osmotic pressure? We’re told that the random “Brownian” movements of particles (molecules, ions etc) will lead to a homogeneous concentration over time. Fine. But with the introduction of a semipermeable membrane, this tendency will lead to osmosis, and also osmotic pressure. How can random movements of particles counteract e.g. gravity? Where does the actual force come from here?
Comment by MySisterIsHere at 06/12/2023 at 21:31 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
However small, wouldn't photons have a gravity well?
I realize light is massless, but it is not energy-less.
Comment by EcchiOli at 06/12/2023 at 22:09 UTC*
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Hi. I once read in a novel a side note, that oil (petroleum) cannot form anymore in the earth's crust from the accumulation and rot of organic materials. Supposedly, the biosphere is now more efficient and the organic matter wouldn't be let to go to waste in the depths, newer better fungi and micro organisms would see to that.
Googling returned nothing of value to me, to either infirm or confirm it
Would anyone know if that is actually true and not just an author's wild guess? Thanks!
(If the context matters, that came alongside a line of questioning around the question "would a sentient species appearing X dozens millions of years after us on Earth have their chance to go through an industrial revolution with easy to extract hydrocarbons and metals". I think I can answer for metal deposits - no, too short, mostly -, but not for oil.)
Comment by [deleted] at 06/12/2023 at 22:45 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
[deleted]
