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 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. As an allusion to the "not too hot, not too cold, but ''just right''" of the {{w|Goldilocks_and_the_Three_Bears|children's story}}, although the varying quality invoked in that is as likely to be saltiness/sweetness as temperature, it is also commonly known as the "Goldilocks Zone". |
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+ | 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 via the {{w|Maillard reaction}}. |
− | 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 either direct contact with the flames, or by exposure to the radiant heat of the fire. |
− | + | 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 due to this. Megan is well outside the habitable zone on the right cool side. She is waving a marshmallow on a stick, but presumably it will not toast, as it is too far from the fire, even farther 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—as a consequence, the far side of the moon has many more craters caused by impacts. The joke here may allude to 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== | ||
− | :[A campfire is in the middle of the panel in a white area with two areas shaded green to the left and right of the fire. There are also two white areas outside of these green areas. Ponytail is sitting normally on the ground to the left of the fire, with her body fully inside the left green area. She is facing the fire and is holding a stick in both hands. The stick has a marshmallow on the tip and she is holding it over the top of the flames of the fire. Cueball is sitting to the right near the fire, only half inside the green are. He is sitting sideways leaning away from the fire, holding one hand to his head, while his | + | :[A campfire is in the middle of the panel in a white area with two areas shaded green to the left and right of the fire. There are also two white areas outside of these green areas. Ponytail is sitting normally on the ground to the left of the fire, with her body fully inside the left green area. She is facing the fire and is holding a stick in both hands. The stick has a marshmallow on the tip and she is holding it over the top of the flames of the fire. Cueball is sitting to the right near the fire, only half inside the green are. He is sitting sideways leaning away from the fire, holding one hand to his head, while his others seems to be ready to support him as he is leaning further away from the fire. The arm closest to the fire and his head seems to be very hot as three small smoke-like lines rises from Cueball. Megan is crouching to the right of Cueball, far from the fire outside the right green area. She is supporting her self on one knee and one foot. She is also holding a stick in both hands with a marshmallow on it. She is holding the stick inside the green area to the right of Cueball far from the fire. Four small lines above and below indicates that she is waving the stick up and down. The camp fire is build up of several logs on top of each other, with big flames above it, with smaller flames hanging loose in the air above the main flames. A small dead tree is to the far left and small rocks/stones lie along the ground all the way from left to right interspersed with grass tufts. Below the scene there is a label from which two curved arrows point to the two green areas.] |
:Label: Habitable zone | :Label: Habitable zone | ||