The surface of Pluto by Chesley Bonestell for "The Conquest of Space" (1949)
i hate hat-head weather. i’m also probably the only one who finds this funny.
Pretty certain that today I lived the nearest earthly reality to my cherished dream: visiting an ice planet
Anonymous asked:
Are there any missed opportunities on a character or story level that you really feel the lack of in the series? To get the ball rolling - I really wish we could have had someone (Garak or Sisko ideally) confronting Julian with his apparent double-think on the Federation. Of the crew he seems the least critical of it (his criticisms mostly seem concerned with method over ideology) and has spent his life living in fear of discovery and being stripped of his freedoms/his citizenship.
this is all very thoughtful and I’m impressed and wish I could offer something so nuanced, but I’m gonna be real here—
I had one thought when I read that first line and it was just ICE PLANET
outerspace-iiinnerspace asked:
if you want to know the SECRET TRUTH about the breen, there is a novel, zero sum game by david mack, which is non canon and i barely remember reading but is very much about the breen and their ice planet and the reason they wear those suits. as far as i remember it's really good and i really REALLY like the way the breen are in it, it's basically become my headcanon for that species. if you're still interested in the breen when you've finished ds9, i would recommend it definitely
Oh HELL YEAH I’m interested! Anything for an ICE PLANET.
Adding this to the ol’ list :)
The Left Hand of Darkness
Being me, I’ve obviously spent the snow being very method and reading ICE PLANET: WHAT IS A MANKIND by my fantasy (and fantasy) grandmother, Ursula K. Le Guin.
Thoughts:
- all descriptions of the forever-winter environs/culture of Gethen just, 👌🏻
- honestly could have read 300-odd pages of just ice planet anthropology, but concede the novel is far more important for having a plot
- spent a CONSIDERABLE portion of said plot muttering “Genly what the fuck is wrong with you”
- the answer is probably that Genly is the only person here who is A Man, which Le Guin conveys as a distinctly limited position, although ultimately successful (perhaps mostly through the mysterious male ability to engender [pun?] sympathy and care-taking in others)
- definitely wonder what it would be like to read this book as a man or a trans person, because for me, a cis-woman, the most profound and interesting and “haHA YES, oh god” elements of it are significantly more subtle than the blunt “on this planet there is no gender” premise. it’s more in a difference of perspective, an observational view on Genly Ai that can only come from someone outside his maleness; some nuance he lacks and Estraven (and the novel) has, that to me feels so recognizably female.
- or perhaps a better and more telling way to phrase it, recognizably Not Male
- in short, what I valued here was not in what the text directly states about men and women, but in the experience of leaning on Estraven’s shoulder as we watched Genly dick around, quite literally
- speaking of, my love for Estraven was of the pretty wildly overblown “you have done nothing wrong, ever, in your life” variety. that this was patently untrue was apparently irrelevant to my heart
- anyway, had plenty of time to consider my love for ice planets, and it chances that my interest may be one part stark beauty one part confrontation of mortality ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Could Planets Like Those Imagined in Star Wars Be Real??
Look at what we’ve found so far.
Is your favorite Star Wars planet a desert world or an ice planet or a jungle moon?
It’s possible that your favorite planet exists right here in our galaxy. Astronomers have found over 3,400 planets around other stars, called “exoplanets.”
Some of these alien worlds could be very similar to arid Tatooine, watery Scarif and even frozen Hoth, according to NASA scientists.
Find out if your planet exists in a galaxy far, far away or all around you.
Planets With Two Suns
Were you going to the Tosche station to pick up some power converters? Hold on a minute and learn about Kepler-16b, 200 light-years from Earth. It’s the first honest-to-goodness planet ever found where you could watch two suns set like Luke. George Lucas himself even blessed its nickname ‘Tatooine.’ It’s not a perfect comparison: Kepler-16b is a cold gas giant roughly the size of Saturn. But don’t worry, kid.
The best part is that Tatooine aka Kepler-16b was just the first. It has family. A LOT of family. Half the stars in our galaxy are pairs, rather than single stars like our sun. If every star has at least one planet, that’s billions of worlds with two suns. Billions! Maybe waiting for life to be found on them.
Desert Worlds
If you’re like Finn and want to know why everyone wants to go back to Jakku desert planets, get this: Star Wars may be reflecting the real universe. Desert worlds are not only a very real possibility, but we think they are probably very common. They can be hot, like the fictional Tatooine and Jakku, or cold, like Jedha in “Rogue One” or our real planet Mars.
Perhaps it’s not so weird that both Luke and Rey grew up on planets that look suspiciously like each other. If you’re scouring the universe for a place to settle, you have a good chance of finding a desert planet.
Ice Planets
There is a Hoth in our galaxy! Though not the same Hoth from “The Empire Strikes Back” (no invading Imperials, for one). The icy super-Earth reminded scientists so much of the frozen Rebel base they nicknamed it “Hoth.” The planet’s real name is OGLE 2005-BLG-390L.
Our galaxy’s Hoth is too cold to support life as we know it. But life may evolve under the ice of a different world, or a moon in our solar system.
We’re currently designing a mission to look for life under the crust of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa. We’re pretty sure ity won’t look like tauntauns, if it exists.
Forest worlds
Both the forest moon of Endor and Takodana, the home of Han Solo’s favorite cantina in “Force Awakens,” are green like our home planet. But astrobiologists think that plant life on other worlds could be red, black, or even rainbow-colored!
In August 2016, astronomers from the European Southern Observatory announced the discovery of Proxima Centauri b, a planet only four light-years away from Earth, which orbits a tiny red star.
The light from a red star, also known as an M dwarf, is dim and mostly in the infrared spectrum (as opposed to the visible spectrum we see with our sun). And that could mean plants with wildly different colors than what we’re used to seeing on Earth. Or, animals that see in the near-infrared.
And Beyond
The next few years will see the launch of a new generation of spacecraft to search for planets around other stars. TESS and the James Webb Telescope will go into space in 2018, and WFIRST in the mid-2020s. That’s one step closer to finding life.
You don’t need to visit a galaxy far, far away to find wondrous worlds. Just visit this one … there’s plenty to see.
Discover more about exoplanets here: https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com
memory-for-trifles replied to your post: toffeecape replied to your post: Vulcan Body…
That’s why you like all those ice planets- a very huggable environment + maximum plausible deniability.
……I cannot believe this. You are So Right and I never knew!!!!
WHAT’S MORE. I AM JUST REALIZING. THEY ARE A SET-UP FOR:
“honestly every story should be about one character getting caught and knocked unconscious in a snowstorm and then another character finding them and having to nurse them back to health by a fire. every story, in the world.” [x]
Wow this has been very illuminating
