Editing 2336: Campfire Habitable Zone
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| titletext = Oh no, my marshmallow became tidally locked! | | titletext = Oh no, my marshmallow became tidally locked! | ||
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+ | {{incomplete|Created by a FIRE-PROOF ORBITING SMORE-MAKING ROBOT. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}} | ||
==Explanation== | ==Explanation== | ||
This comic plays on the concept of the astronomic "habitable zone" applied at the scale of people sitting around a campfire. | This comic plays on the concept of the astronomic "habitable zone" applied at the scale of people sitting around a campfire. | ||
− | The {{w|Circumstellar habitable zone|habitable zone}} | + | The {{w|Circumstellar habitable zone|habitable zone}} for a star (also known as the "Goldilocks Zone") is the range of distances in which a planet might support liquid water, and hence life in the only form that we currently know of. Too close, and the amount of stellar radiation would be too great, causing water to boil. Too far, and the water would freeze. For liquid water to actually exist, the planet itself must also have the right mass (in order to maintain a life-compatible atmosphere) and meet other requirements. For our sun, the habitable zone is estimated to range from about 0.38 to 10 astronomical units, where 1.0 is the distance from the sun to the Earth. |
− | {{w|Marshmallow# | + | {{w|Marshmallow#Toasted_marshmallows|Marshmallow toasting}} is a popular camping activity in which people place a marshmallow (a soft, sugary blob made of gelatin and covered in corn starch) on a stick near a fire. As it cooks, the middle becomes gooey while the outside becomes crispy and perhaps slightly charred, making it tastier.{{Citation needed}} |
− | In the context of the campfire, a similar "habitable zone" is posited | + | In the context of the campfire, a similar "habitable zone" is posited to exist: close enough to the fire that the person can comfortably toast marshmallows, presumably on a stick of reasonable length - the ones shown seem to be about 1.5 times an arm's normal reach; yet far enough that the person is not uncomfortably hot, or even burnt by the flames. |
− | + | In the comic, Ponytail is sitting in the left habitable zone (marked in green), and appears to be enjoyably toasting a marshmallow. Cueball is sitting half outside the right habitable zone, too close to the fire, and appears to be getting singed on his arm, which is too close to the fire. Megan is well outside the habitable zone on the right cool side. She is waving a marshmallow on a stick, perhaps shivering cold herself, but presumably it will not toast, as it is too far from the fire, even further from the fire than Cueball. | |
− | The title text introduces the concept of {{w|tidal locking}} | + | The title text introduces the concept of {{w|tidal locking}}. This is when one astronomical body synchronizes its rotation with its orbit around another, such that one side always faces the other body. The joke here is that if a marshmallow became tidally locked to the fire, then one side would become more and more cooked, perhaps burnt, while the other side never became toasted at all. This happens in real life, as in the case of Earth's moon, which always presents the same face to the Earth; and also in the case of a marshmallow that has begun melting more than you realized and dripped down too far, so that it no longer responds when you rotate the roasting stick, and you'd better cut your losses and pull it out now before it drops into the fire pit. |
==Transcript== | ==Transcript== | ||
− | :[ | + | {{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}} |
+ | :[The scene consists of 3 people sitting near a campfire with two green areas to the left and right of the fire. Ponytail is sitting to the left of the fire, with her body fully in the green habitable zone and is holding a stick with a marshmallow pointed at the fire. Cueball is sitting to the right of the fire, half sitting in the white area where the fire is and half in the green habitable zone. He is visibly sweating. Megan is crouching to the right of Cueball, outside the habitable zone with a marshmallow on a stick pointing into the green zone. Below the scene two arrows point to the two green areas marked with a label.] | ||
:Label: Habitable zone | :Label: Habitable zone | ||
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{{comic discussion}} | {{comic discussion}} | ||
− | + | [[Category:Comics featuring Megan]] | |
+ | [[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]] | ||
+ | [[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]] | ||
[[Category:Comics with color]] | [[Category:Comics with color]] | ||
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[[Category:Astronomy]] | [[Category:Astronomy]] | ||
[[Category:Food]] | [[Category:Food]] |