ZeroByte

After watching an episode of shanedk's excellent video series, Bogosity, debunking the Apollo landing hoax, I stepped outside to just look at the Moon for a bit. I saw a halo around the Moon, but it was not circular - it was rectangular, and furthermore, the Moon was not centered in this grayish rectangle, but located in the lower-left region of it.

It only took me a few seconds to realize what caused this, but I thought it might be fun to see who else out there can guess the cause. I thought of this because it reminded me of the sometimes strange claims that are posted here. I know that a real Moon halo would be circular, obviously, but if I read a claim of a square halo (which disappeared after a minute or two), I would be skeptical.

Can you debunk this phenomenon?

My apartment complex just replaced the bulbs in all of their ungodly-bright white lights everywhere. I was able to sit outside with a clipboard and hand-write my letter of complaint from the "darkest" spot I was able to find. You could litterally play a game of street football in the parking lot!

Is nothing sacred? I know that my letter of complaint will receive a mere boilerplate "we're sorry, but we have to stop the burglars" response, but this is just too aggregiously bright to not complain. Is there anything more that I can bring up in my complaints to them? Certainly nobody gives a damn about seeing the stars, which will most CERTAINLY be impacted now - you can clearly see colors in this light, which means that your night vision is destroyed.

God, I'm so pissed!

With all of these green causes out there making noise, I wonder if there's anyone out there rattling any sabers for the cause of preserving the beauty of the night sky. I think it's a Go_ dam__d travesty how little of the night sky we can see anymore, and people put up more lights every year. You could read a book on my parents' back porch now, yet see the Milky Way from that very yard when I was a kid.

If there are any light pollution awareness groups out there, are they even taken seriously?

I think all producers of Apollo hoax 'documentaries,' as well as all studio executives who green light their airing on "reputable" networks should have to interview Buzz Aldrin for their video, and be required to include the part where they call him a liar, a coward, and a thief.

Who's with me?

I've answered a few questions about tidal locking, and in my own imagination, I see a period of time where from Earth perspective, the Moon would seem to oscillate back and forth, like the balance wheel in a wrist watch. Is this correct?

Also - which component of the Earth-Moon system would be gaining the momentum lost by the Moon as it became tidally locked with Earth?

Is there any sort of forums site that you like to hang out on relating to this same topic, but free from all the 2012/Apollo Hoax/Are there really aliens/etc. clutter?

I really enjoy reading a lot of your responses, and learn as much as I pass out, and would like to be able to talk to some folks in more 2-way fashion.

If there's not one, and I created one, would you like to join it?

I've decided to beat the rush in 2013, and start working on a doomsday theory to publish. There will be a huge demand for fear and misinformation after Jan 01, 2013 rolls around, and I've decided to cash in on the next round. I think Feb 2nd of 2022 sounds like a particularly scary day, on the scientific grounds that it's composed entirely of twos. What other auspicious coincidences can I tie in to my theory to make it extra scary?

Okay, all of these galactic alignment in 2012 people have gotten me thinking. When pondering my response to one of them (why do I even bother?), something dawned on me, and I would like to know if I thought about it correctly or not.

If the poles are progressing over a 20+ thousand year cycle, doesn't this mean that the Sun's position in the zodiac also changes? In other words, would the Sun be in the constellation Sagitarius during the month of March some 7000 years from now?

We use leap years to keep our calendar aligned with the seasons, but wouldn't the stellar background drift over time as a result? If I'm correct in my thinking, then in about 13000 years, northern summer will be at perihelion in stead of the apahelion that it is currently. I suspect we'll want to call that "July" still, so that means the sun would be 180 degrees through the sky from where it is now. Is this right, or am I missing something?

Does anyone know what the current leading theory is on WHY time and space distort at large velocities? I tend to think about this a lot, and think that it's related to the expansion of space and the idea that space is curved. The faster you go, the higher above the curve of space your delta-x takes you.

I'm not looking for explanations of the effects, i.e. twin paradox, spatial foreshortening, and the constant nature of C. I get all that. I'm looking for insights as to WHY it acts like this. I feel that the real answer would be stunningly simple, just as the reason behind retrograde planet motion was simple once Copernicus got Brahe's data and analyzed it.

In a few years, once space tourism becomes more accessible to the masses that people can purchase orbital flights, would a flat earther even dare go on such a flight? If so, seeing the round Earth for themselves, would they finally STFU?????

They should call it the "head in the sand society"

A recent question about changing asteroids' orbits is in line with my own thoughts lately. It seems to me that with enough advanced warning, an ion thruster could be landed on an asteroid and used to divert its orbit enough to take it out of harm's way.

Thinking of the reason that Pluto will never collide with Neptune, I thought that possibly inclining an asteroid's orbit might be easier than raising its apehelion above 1au.

Unfortunately, I don't know all the formulas involved so it's not a simple answer for me. Assuming diverting orbits of Neo's as a given, which would be better - increasing their energy to stay outside Earth's orbit, or inclining them off of the ecliptic so that there is no intersection.

In my answer to a question here, involving firing a gun in space, I am thinking I may have been incorrect about something.

If you were to have a large vacuum chamber and fire a bullet while standing on the floor, and another while sitting on a magnetically levitated platform, would the muzzle velocities of the two bullets be the same (assuming identical mass slugs and identical charges in the cartridges)?

I'm not sure whether kinetic energy imparted to the marksman and the bullet are the same, or if it's momentum. I know that regardless, momentum must be conserved, but I forget how to calculate the amount of momentum in this situation...

I used the following values in my example:

mass of bullet: 115grain =~ 0.00745kg

muzzle velocity of bullet: 360m/s (this is a typical value when fired within the atmosphere, but it doesn't matter for my question)

Anyone less rusty than me in dynamics able to straighten me out on this one?

After answering an emphatic 'no' to so many "were the moon landings faked" questions, I've got a question for the community here.

It occurred to me that the signals coming from the moon could be picked up by anyone with the right equipment, and I'm sure some enthusiasts out there set up their own receivers to listen to the broadcasts from the moon themselves.

Did anyone here do that?

A friend and I were talking about relativistic time dialation, and the question was asked: If you're travelling to Alpha Centauri and it takes you 4.5 years to arrive, (as observed by the traveller) then a) how fast were you going, and b) how much time has elapsed on Earth?

The big crunch is only theorized, of course as they don't know for sure if there's enough mass in the universe to overcome the momentum of the big bang. However, supposing there is, would the universe ever condense back to that infintesimal volume again? Black holes form with considerably less mass than there is in the universe.