#science question

[zephzephyrus]

why did they put them in comas?? ik they said it’s to maximise chance of survival, but why?? was it cause they were going the speed of light (or around that)?? or that they didn’t want to eat/drink all the food and water on the ship?? when grace starts to go home, he’s awake, not in another coma, and was just gonna fly back for those 4 years (time dilation). was he gonna also be going light (ish) speed to get back?? these are genuines questions btw, im very curious as to why

[thespianinthebackcorner]

Do I have any followers/moots who are knowledgeable on, like, hot or molten metal and the kinda burns you can get from them? I have a Question that searching up isn't giving me answers for. It's giving me medical advice and panna cotta recipes (for some reason) instead of answers.

I wanted to know if, like. Y'know how if you heat up plastic and it's sitting right against your skin (like if a lithium battery in a vape heats up really quickly, i was told a story abt this a few years back) the plastic can fuse to a person's skin? I wanna know if, whether by the same process or by, like, heating up and then rapid cooling or something, the same can happen with metal. Is it possible for a thick bracelet or a piece of tech or something to just melt itself to your skin and then when it cools they're stuck together. Because it might help some of my writing if it is and if it isn't that's (NARRATIVELY) sad.

Science side of Tumblr help a writer out please?

[welschcitygwent]

Little redraw I haven’t drawn anything stylized in forever

I LOVE ESTHER AND ABADDON SO MUCH I hope we get more moments between them in season 2

Also, does Abaddon breathe? Could we (in theory) carbon date him? Does the magic keeping him alive keep him exchanging carbon with the atmosphere???

[applecherry108]

Can someone explain a science to me?

Rocky says he will “go home 6 years slower” (and it’s always in human units) when giving away astrophage, but then on the Hail Mary, the trip to Erid takes ~4 years.

So I’m confused. Did Grace just have way more astrophage than Rocky after the donation then? But Erid is farther away from Tau Ceti than Earth? (~16ly vs ~12ly) And then I saw a timeline somewhere that Grace would’ve run out of food with a year to go if he’d gone back to Earth, but he just barely made it to Erid before completely running out?

My 30-something year old brain is mush and I can’t process physics like I could a decade ago—can someone break this down for me? 😭

[wolfeoflullabies]

So, I have some Project Hail Mary science questions for anyone more knowledgable in science than me.

What is up with the Hail Mary’s air, and why is it completely oxygen? Rocky only gives Grace O2 for his atmosphere, which means his sample would literally only be oxygen, however I’m pretty sure that too much oxygen can be dangerous. Looking it up the ISS’s air is 21% oxygen and 79% nitrogen. However, we know that can’t be the case because nitrogen is extremely deadly to Taumeoba, so the first Taumeoba leak in the book would have never been possible. Is there an actual explanation for this?

This might just be me misunderstanding things, but is Rocky’s atmosphere really 29 times heavier than Earth’s atmosphere? When going to catch the first cylinder Grace mentions that the Hail Mary is kept at .4 atmospheres of pressure (I think). Rocky doesn’t know Earth, only the Hail Mary, so when he’s comparing his and Grace’s atmosphere he isn’t comparing Erid and Earth’s atmosphere, but rather the Hail Mary’s lower pressure with Erid making Rocky’s atmospheric pressure larger than it actually is.

Does anyone have good answers for this, or did Weir just make a mistake?

[my-dear-anonym]

Science side of Tumblr I need your help.

So hurricanes and ocean based storms (with high winds and precipitation) rely on evaporation and dense water moisture in the air. But here's what I'm trying to figure out. If it were possible--say through magic-- to superheat a hurricane instantaneously, let's say with the concentrated power of the sun, could you forcefully evaporate rainfall? Could you basically destroy the storm for a period of time before it reforms with the new evaporation? Or would that just make it worse? Additionally, would the sudden disappearance of all the moisture in the storm have any effect on the wind

[aliengee]

I need to fucking know this. and everyone hates when I ask questions but. is 10 just an arbitrary number we chose bc humans have 10 fingers? like we have 10 100 1000 and we have 10² 10⁶ and so on. we measure a lot of things, especially big things by 10. why? is this just because we all do it? could we have just as easily made 8 our special number?

why is it 10

[batwynn]

Rocklbr I’ve got another one for you.

What is this?

Info:

Found on a beach in mid-coast Maine. Small chunks but also found a huge stone embedded into the beach with the same make up. The larger stone had a lot more red in it. The beach is sort of near a river estuary but unlikely the river has any real impact on the beach/area as it’s a pretty wide bay and it’s a few inlets apart from the actual estuary.

The smaller, smooth one was tumbled for a bit. The soft gray parts can take some light but aren’t fully transparent.