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Post by Floyd Looney on Jul 30, 2011 1:08:45 GMT -5
www.space.com/12414-dwarf-planet-haumea-water-ice-moons.htmlRadioactivity and gravity may be why the strange football-shaped dwarf planet known as Haumea and its moons are unexpectedly sheathed in crystalline ice, shining in space, researchers suggest. Haumea, named after the Hawaiian goddess of childbirth, orbits the sun beyond the path of Neptune, with two moons in orbit around it named Hi'iaka and Namaka, two of the deity's daughters. Haumea is a bizarre dwarf planet world shaped like a cigar, or perhaps an American football, measuring about 1,200 miles (2,000 kilometers) long, and makes one full rotation in less than four hours. This is one of the fastest rotation speeds in the solar system, which gave Haumea its odd shape. 
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Post by Attero Dominatus on Jul 30, 2011 12:15:52 GMT -5
I was just reading about Sedna to do a story taking place there. This planet is even weirder!
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Post by Floyd Looney on Jul 30, 2011 14:34:08 GMT -5
football shaped dwarf planet, 2 means and an internal heat source??
yep, weird
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Post by Attero Dominatus on Jul 30, 2011 15:04:19 GMT -5
football shaped dwarf planet, 2 means and an internal heat source?? yep, weird For a story, it could have more uranium than any colonist there knows what to do with, and a communist Earth wants to seize it. The colonists use it for nuclear saltwater rockets (http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/enginelist.php#id--Nuclear_Salt-water_Rocket). |
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Post by Floyd Looney on Jul 30, 2011 15:20:42 GMT -5
That would be something. Must be pretty cold out there though.
Salt water rocket sounds very interesting. Probably better than the sausage rocket on Mythbusters.
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Post by Attero Dominatus on Jul 30, 2011 21:14:49 GMT -5
That would be something. Must be pretty cold out there though. Anywhere from -260 to -230 degrees Celsius. Colonists could use nuclear power for electricity. The vast majority of a colony would be underground, so there is little need for heating once you get the place to room temperature. After that, human body heat would more than replace the losses to the outside and the pace would actually need to be cooled more than heated. A lot better for being a rare combination of high exhaust velocity and high thrust. Both of them are usually mutually exclusive. Water has a lot of mass, which equates to a lot of momentum for thrust. Uranium 235 has a lot of energy, which is necessary for exhaust velocity. Most rockets will have one or the other. High thrust rockets throw a lot of material out through the nozzle in a very short time, so they run out of fuel fast. Low thrust rockets conserve their propellant by throwing small amounts out at very high speed, allowing them to accelerate to very high velocities but only over a period of months. The best place to launch a nuclear rocket would be at the ends of the planet, into the direction of spin. |
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Post by Floyd Looney on Jul 31, 2011 0:01:39 GMT -5
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Post by Attero Dominatus on Aug 1, 2011 20:38:38 GMT -5
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Post by Floyd Looney on Aug 1, 2011 20:46:46 GMT -5
lol. The denial of reality among the left is amazing.
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Post by Attero Dominatus on Aug 1, 2011 20:55:54 GMT -5
lol I agree.
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Post by Attero Dominatus on Aug 1, 2011 22:44:07 GMT -5
The only warming is the hot air inside Al Bore's head and it's getting hotter because the Second Law Of Thermodynamics does not apply in lefty fantasy world. |
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Post by Floyd Looney on Aug 1, 2011 22:51:43 GMT -5
Nothing that applies to real life is allowed in lefty fantasy world
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