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Fishing

|< < Prev #3179 (December 10, 2025)

Title text: 'That's definitely above the catch-and-release size minimum for planetesimals.' 'I'm going to throw it back anyway.'

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Explanation

Ponytail and Beret Guy are fishing in the middle of a body of water, and Beret Guy has hooked a rock. Similarly to the common meme that sees people catching objects such as boots and shopping trollies, he exclaims that it "feels like a big one". Fishers may judge the size of a fish by the amount of resistance they feel on the line, and such objects would provide an unusually high level of resistance. (Also, the boat would be bulled down when reeling, so they could only tell that their downward pull is greater than the boat's buoyancy.) In this case, though, Beret Guy can apparently feel that it must be "at least 10²⁴ kilograms" — that is, an object the size of the Earth in its entirety, whose mass can be estimated at approximately 6.0x10²⁴ kilograms (~13.1x10²⁴ pounds at standard gravitational acceleration of the Earth).

Catch-and-release sizes restrict what sizes of catch of various species can be kept, generally to protect stocks. There may be minimum sizes (to protect young fish and ensure that they can reach mature reproductive age) or maximum sizes (to protect existing breeding populations). Apparently, the Earth is large enough to be kept, suggesting that smaller planets and other bodies (perhaps such as Pluto, for example) might be considered immature, and that they might be expected to grow to 'adult' planet size.

Transcript

[Ponytail and Beret Guy are sitting on a boat in the ocean. Fish are seen swimming in the water. Megan has a fishing rod that is about halfway down to the ocean floor. Beret Guy's fishing hook is hooked onto the sea floor.]

Beret Guy: It feels like a big one! At least 10²⁴ kilograms!

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