Recent content by Chessguy

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    Undergrad How long would daylight last on Earth if the sun disappeared?

    SpaceTiger, Would the Earth break orbit the instant the sun disappears or would it continue to orbit normally for another 8 minutes before breaking off at a tangent? I guess if gravity propagates at the speed of light then it would have to be the latter but it doesn't make intuitive sense to...
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    Undergrad Possible Explanations To Fermi's Paradox?

    Turbo-1, While, the nuclear winter that article describes is certainly horrible, I'm not convinced that such a disaster would wipe out humanity. It makes a comparison to the Cretaceous extinction which wiped out 75% of species. That means that 25% of species survived. Many mammals...
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    Undergrad Planet discovered in 3-star system

    Why is it uncharacteristic? :confused: Doesn't our moon orbit the Earth and not a figure-eight pattern around us the sun and say Jupiter?
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    Undergrad What Is Needed To Make An Intelligent Species?

    why 1000 year window? I was following you until here. Are you saying that radio becomes obsolete after 1000 years? If so wouldn't some alien races still try to say hi using radio? Especially if they new we were here? Aren't we within 100 years or so of being able to see other Earths in...
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    Undergrad What Is Needed To Make An Intelligent Species?

    confused I'm not sure I understand your assumptions. Are you saying that all these high level civilizations stopped broadcasting as soon as we had the technology to here them? Or are you saying that all of these advanced civilizations developped radio technology at the exact same time that...
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    High School The age of the universe: easy question - hard answer

    Another amateur question let us suppose that we are exactly at the centre of a spherical universe if we look in one direction and see stars, microwaves or whatever for 6.85 billion light years then nothing then we turn around and look in the opposite direction and see stuff for 6.85 billion...