Talk:3265: Asteroid Threat

2026-07-01T03:03:48Z

72.174.128.4:

I must be getting ''old''; when I was a kid, the Chicxulub impact was said to have been only 65 million years ago, and now it's 66?! --[[User:Itub|Itub]] ([[User talk:Itub|talk]]) 21:25, 29 June 2026 (UTC)
:No! (But [[:Category:Comics to make one feel old|these]] will also make you feel old)(Seriously, though, probably just different estimation.) [[User:RadiantRainwing|K9Dragon23, or RainWingSquares (talk)]] ([[User talk:RadiantRainwing|talk]]) 21:42, 29 June 2026 (UTC) 
::Reassured to see I'm not the only one. I went to check, and apparently a study from 2013 estimated the Chicxulub crater to be 66.038 ± 0,011 million years old. [[Special:Contributions/77.159.181.114|77.159.181.114]] 09:22, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

Can anyone think of a reason to link this to the What-If comic "Cassini"? And how do we do that on this platform? Oh, wow. Hey, on Cassini-Earth, it looks like the Chicxulub crater (21°24′N 89°30′W) would happen near Tunguska (60°54′11″N 101°54′35″E). Or not. [[Special:Contributions/158.173.67.90|158.173.67.90]] 00:10, 30 June 2026 (UTC)
:You might link to it with <code><nowiki>{{what if|10|something like this}}</nowiki></code>, using the {{template|what if}} template in lowercase, which looks {{what if|10|something like this}} and sends you to the appropriate bit of the table on this site's catalogue page. Or else <code><nowiki>{{What If|10|something like that}}</nowiki></code>, using {{template|What If}} template in TitleCase, which looks {{What If|10|something like that}} and sends you to the actual what-if site original.
:It would all depend on what your preference is. (Going to the former gives you a further jumping-off point to going to the latter, but also to any youtube videos noted to be about it, etc.):I'm not actually convinced that there's any reason to link to {{What If|10}}, in this case, but that's how you would do it, FYI. Knock yourself out, or just remember enough about it to work it out from scratch the next time you really think you ought to. [[Special:Contributions/81.179.200.152|81.179.200.152]] 00:51, 30 June 2026 (UTC)
::Thanks! Anyway, it looks like Cassini's Chicxulub event would happen somewhere on the 1100-km stretch between Tunguska and Norilsk. I haven't figured out the math yet, just compared maps. [[Special:Contributions/158.173.67.61|158.173.67.61]] 01:07, 30 June 2026 (UTC)
:::The maths for the projection can be found {{w|Cassini projection|here}}, which translates from 'our' Lat/Long values into a flat x/y map. But for conversion Lat/Long to Cassini-world Lat/Long (not quite sure why you're thinking of doing that, for this comic) you instead take our Earth's locations as defined by degrees North/South (numbers go up in magnitude until ±90° at the North/South Poles) and treat those as degrees West/East (±90° are at the 'West/East Poles'). Then the Earth's degrees West/East (up to ±180°), that on Earth rotate around the equator/line-of-latitude lines/poles, are now rotations around Cassini's own West/East Poles. For locations that are equatorial and prime-meridian(+'dateline'), that's a simple swap (North=>West, East=>North, South=>East, West=>South), and anything on the '90 degrees west/east' great-circle is moved 90 degrees (anything on 'West 90' you move 90-degrees more south, and if it's now >90 degrees south you need to take that excess number of degrees away from 90 to get the 'southness' on the 'East 90' line; whereas old '90 East' positions are now +90 in a North direction, with >90 ones being 90-minus-that-excess degrees North on the 'West 90' line), but it's a bit more complicated those places significantly off those two lines.
:::You might want to plug it through a two step process of polar-cartesian-polar conversion. Start with lat/lon (as θ/φ), make it into x/y/z (say 'x' is back-to-front, 'y' is west-to-east, 'z' is south to north), then rotate it (z is used for what is the new -y, y is use for the new z, with x preserved), then back-convert that to 'new' θ/φ. Any simplification into a one-step (albeit trigonometrically nested) process is left up to you. ;) [[Special:Contributions/81.179.200.152|81.179.200.152]] 22:16, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

Only 3 million more years to go! [[User:RG|RG]] ([[User talk:RG|talk]]) 00:16, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

Absurd?? You're laughing. Dinosaurs could be back ''any century now'' and you're laughing. --[[Special:Contributions/37.19.210.20|37.19.210.20]] 03:42, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

I think there's a typo in the comic: it says "dire" instead of "exciting". [[Special:Contributions/94.249.207.231|94.249.207.231]] 06:46, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

Bringing <em>back</em> the dinosaurs? The Avian Anti-defamation League could have something to say about this. "We're not going back to the Cretaceous, and you can't make us!" Beware of protests and direct actions organized by the ravens and parrots, with hummingbirds conducting lightning raids, the passerines being anything but passive, the raptors as heavy bombers, and the vultures cleaning up the mess. [[Special:Contributions/2605:59C8:160:DB08:EC43:FFC6:18F5:1D73|2605:59C8:160:DB08:EC43:FFC6:18F5:1D73]] 14:07, 30 June 2026 (UTC)
: "What do we want?"
: "What do we want?"
: "When do we want it?"
: "When do we want it? Ark! Polly want a cracker!" [[Special:Contributions/82.13.184.33|82.13.184.33]] 15:00, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

I'm imagining asteroid hitting the other side, and then the Chicxulub crater cartoonishly popping out and a bunch of dinosaurs flying out from it. [[User:Fephisto|Fephisto]] ([[User talk:Fephisto|talk]]) 20:43, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

I was listening to Steven Wright while reading this.

explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:3265: Asteroid Threat