Editing 2121: Light Pollution
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==Explanation== | ==Explanation== | ||
| − | This comic shows how {{w|Light pollution|light pollution}} in cities | + | This comic shows how {{w|Light pollution|light pollution}} in cities affect what you can see from the night sky. The first three panels show realistic examples of what you could see from the sky inside a large city, in the suburbs and far away from light pollution. These panels roughly correlate on the {{w|Bortle Scale}} to 8-9 (city), 5-6 (suburbs) and 2-3 (remote area). |
| − | The last panel contrasts these for comedic effect with fake things that are not actually present in the night sky.{{Citation needed}} The "Ships of the Sky King" may be a reference to an elven legend in {{w|J. R. R. Tolkien}}'s works, in which several elven ships sail tangentially off the planet of Middle Earth and into the sky. This story was previously mentioned in [[1255: Columbus]]. "{{w|Celestial spheres|Crystal spheres}}" is an ancient theory about the heavens and what it was that held up the stars, before it was commonly accepted that space could be made of hard vacuum and celestial bodies held there by laws of inertia and gravity and vast distances. The spheres are nested inside each other concentrically. Randall proposes they are held by {{w|latticework}} like that which supports the Eiffel Tower, and that the lattice structure could be seen long ago when the sky was much darker. It is also a possible reference to the science fiction short-story "{{w|The_Crystal_Spheres|The Crystal Spheres}}" by David Brin, where the solar system is surrounded by hard crystal spheres that have to be broken before leaving as an explanation of the Fermi Paradox. Furthermore, in the lore of Dungeons & Dragons, the solar system is also enclosed in a massive crystal sphere, with other solar systems in similar solar systems, separated by "the flow". | + | The last panel contrasts these for comedic effect with fake things in the sky that are not actually present in the night sky.{{Citation needed}} The "Ships of the Sky King" may be a reference to an elven legend in {{w|J. R. R. Tolkien}}'s works, in which several elven ships sail tangentially off the planet of Middle Earth and into the sky. This story was previously mentioned in [[1255: Columbus]]. "{{w|Celestial spheres|Crystal spheres}}" is an ancient theory about the heavens and what it was that held up the stars, before it was commonly accepted that space could be made of hard vacuum and celestial bodies held there by laws of inertia and gravity and vast distances. The spheres are nested inside each other concentrically. Randall proposes they are held by {{w|latticework}} like that which supports the Eiffel Tower, and that the lattice structure could be seen long ago when the sky was much darker. It is also a possible reference to the science fiction short-story "{{w|The_Crystal_Spheres|The Crystal Spheres}}" by David Brin, where the solar system is surrounded by hard crystal spheres that have to be broken before leaving as an explanation of the Fermi Paradox. Furthermore, in the lore of Dungeons & Dragons, the solar system is also enclosed in a massive crystal sphere, with other solar systems in similar solar systems, separated by "the flow". |
Although all crystals do have a {{w|Crystal structure|crystal lattice}}, as in the [https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/crystal meaning 3] of the word "crystal" in Merriam-Webster (<i>a body that [...] has a regularly repeating internal arrangement of its atoms and often external plane faces</i>), these lattices are sub-microscopic and would be invisible in the sky. Additionally, crystal structure was not yet known at the time that the celestial spheres theory was popular. | Although all crystals do have a {{w|Crystal structure|crystal lattice}}, as in the [https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/crystal meaning 3] of the word "crystal" in Merriam-Webster (<i>a body that [...] has a regularly repeating internal arrangement of its atoms and often external plane faces</i>), these lattices are sub-microscopic and would be invisible in the sky. Additionally, crystal structure was not yet known at the time that the celestial spheres theory was popular. | ||
