explain xkcd:Sandbox
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We have an explanation for all 3243 xkcd comics, and only 66 (2%) are incomplete. Help us finish them!
Latest comic[edit]
| Europa Missions |
Title text: Before resurfacing, they promise to inspect the ice for any evidence of hockey-playing life. |
Explanation[edit]
| This is incomplete: This page was created recently by the Zamboni Voyager. Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page! |
In recent years, NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) have sent spacecraft to observe Jupiter’s moon Europa. According to NASA, the moon could be a candidate for life, so it would make sense that the scientists would send spacecraft to observe it. The first two craft, the Europa Clipper and Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, respectively, will investigate the ocean, topography and chemistry of the moon, to help in searching for signs of life. Europa's ocean is frozen on the top, thus "subsurface ocean."
A Zamboni is a vehicle that, rather than being a scientific misson or a transport for other scientific missions, is meant to quickly resurface ice rinks that have been worn down. The comic talks about a hypothetical spacecraft carrying a Zamboni because the National Hockey League (NHL) wants to expand their games to Europa due to the surface of the moon’s oceans being completely covered in ice. Hockey in reduced gravity would be an interesting idea.
The title text talks about finding hockey playing life on Europa, which would be unlikely, as the life on Earth and Europa are completely separate cultures,[citation needed] so even if the life on Europa does have its own forms of entertainment similar to sports, it would be unlikely that the sports played have even remotely similar rules or equipment. It appears that, if life were on Europa that did not play hockey, the NHL would not consider them important enough to reassess the impacts of their space mission.
Transcript[edit]
- [Cueball's upper body is shown; he is in front of an image of a spacecraft.]
- Cueball: There are now three spacecraft headed to Europa:
- Cueball: NASA's Europa Clipper, which investigate Europa's subsurface ocean,
- [In a longer shot, Cueball, Ponytail, and Hairy are all shown standing in front of another spacecraft image, with Cueball gesturing at it.]
- Cueball: ESA's Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, which will study the topography and chemistry of Europa and the other moons,
- [Another closeup on Cueball, who is in front of an image of a Zamboni with a firing rocket nozzle on its bottom.]
- Cueball: And the NHL's Zamboni Voyager, which plans to resurface Europa.
- Voice out of frame: Oh no.
- Cueball: We tried to stop them, but the league is set on an expansion.
Trivia[edit]
- The original version of the comic incorrectly referred to the "Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter" rather than "Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer."
Discussion
Make changes, try things out, or just have fun with the wiki here! Just leave everything above the line alone, please.
This is a test. PoolloverNathan[stalk the blue seas] 20:48, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
- This is not. —While False (museum | talk | contributions | logs | rights | printable version | page information | what links there | related changes | Google search | current time: 17:13) 18:38, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
- A foreign student asked me to help fight against his math teacher. That was unusual. He was in that class for just a couple of weeks. The teacher's phone number was sent to me. The student asked me to spam-call the teacher. 172.71.155.55 22:58, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
here i'm just messing around in html, ignore this
furhhfghure guyrburgryhuyvfr "rvhru"
interesting way of writing quotations xd
- hmmm this one of putting "<p>" in a line break will come in handy for when i want it to start at the same place than the first line
edit: da hek did that "</div>" come from An user who has no account yet (talk) 14:14, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
hi uh its hard to get here.
is this a reference to undocumented feature??? hmm... this is interesting.
108.162.241.216 02:05, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
yum yum [citation needed]
Hiuiedeixgeyceiyedhcdiedcve {{trout}}
This is the leaderboard:Last 7 days (Top 50) |
<a href=" [AT THE JULY 28TH MEETING][tab] "Cancel the meeting! Our cover is blown."> More testing: hello doesthiswork (yesitdoes) This isn't a good name (talk) 22:44, 28 January 2026 (UTC)
hi 164.58.172.158 14:21, 23 February 2026 (UTC)
What is this?????????????????????? King Pando (talk) 04:25, 10 March 2026 (UTC)New here?[edit]
Last 30 days (Top 10) |
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