TIL: Today I Learned

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I thought Anno 2205's KREEP was just sci-fi alphabet soup. Turns out it's a real lunar material composed of potassium, rare earth elements, and phosphorus. K-REE-P.
 
Astronomers may be brilliant scientists, but they are terrible at making up names. :p
 
On a related note, TIL Omicron Persei is a real star system. Fingers crossed for real Omicrons too.
 
Astronomers may be brilliant scientists, but they are terrible at making up names. :p
You are free to supply us with a list of original names for every galaxy and star we spotted so far.
I think we have enough mythologies to draw names from even if we somehow manage to outdo the Greeks.
 
You are free to supply us with a list of original names for every galaxy and star we spotted so far.
If someone was willing to pay me to do just that, I would. :)
 
You are free to supply us with a list of original names for every galaxy and star we spotted so far.
I'm reminded of one of the excuses they gave for demoting Pluto. They said if Pluto were to remain a planet, they'd have to promote a lot of other smaller objects in the solar system to planet status, and people would have a hard time remembering them.

Well, if they didn't give them names that are hard to spell... Ceres is easy. Makemake isn't hard to spell, but I'd bet most people couldn't pronounce it correctly the first time. Sedna isn't bad. Quaoar... took me numerous times to get it right the first time. And of all of these, only Ceres appears to be programmed into my spell checker (a deficiency I have just remedied).

On a related note, TIL Omicron Persei is a real star system. Fingers crossed for real Omicrons too.
Why would it not be a real star system? :confused:
 
Why would it not be a real star system? :confused:
Figured it was just made up by Futurama..

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TIL that drinking a liter of Cola and then eating a bunch of Mentos Dragees, as well as doing it the other way around, is completely safe and does not actually put your life at risk.
 
I thought Sandwich was a Lord??
That's the 4th Earl of Sandwich, after whom the food and the islands were named.
 
Figured it was just made up by Futurama..

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The planet is made up. The star itself exists, although it might not actually support planets or intelligent life.

It's a sad fact that a lot of the stars mentioned in the original Star Trek can't actually support the species and civilizations that are depicted in the show. Vega, for instance, is such a young star that it doesn't even have a fully formed solar system yet - and it's a blue giant, so it probably won't live long enough for any planets it eventually might have to develop intelligent life.

The flip side is when they set stories on planets orbiting red giants. Those stars are old and near the end of their life cycle. Any life-bearing planets they had would have been long-dead by that time, unless they were on the outer fringes. For example, it would be interesting to see what kind of life might come along on Jupiter or Saturn's moons after our own Sun becomes a red giant. Earth will be long gone at that point, of course.
 
Well, if they didn't give them names that are hard to spell... Ceres is easy. Makemake isn't hard to spell, but I'd bet most people couldn't pronounce it correctly the first time. Sedna isn't bad. Quaoar... took me numerous times to get it right the first time. And of all of these, only Ceres appears to be programmed into my spell checker (a deficiency I have just remedied).

That stems from a lack of letters in the Polynesian language, as far as I'm aware.
 
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