{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3089", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 3089, "subject": "Green the Outer World", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "2002-03-26T00:39:17+00:00", "last": "2002-03-26T17:31:01+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi", "address": "mantis at siriusfiction.com" }, "date": "2002-03-26T00:39:17+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Green the Outer World", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Duh!\n\nIn my previous figurings, I put Green as a Venus stand-in. Those jungles,\ndoncha know.\n\nBut hey, if Green is a full disk in the sky (iirc it is always a disk,\nnever crescent--another big tip if that is correct, since outer worlds are\nalways seen as disks), then it must be located further from the Breenstar:\nan outer world dipping in, rather than an inner world reaching out to Blue.\n\nThis could help a lot with the whole six-year problem. It probably plays\nhavoc with the estimated \"habitable zone\" around Sol-type stars, but maybe\nnot.\n\nLet's see . . . put Blue at 0.95 AU (Fogg's Moist Greenhouse outer edge),\nput Green at 1.83 AU (Fogg's outer edge of Juvenile Mars, just this side of\nRunaway Icehouse) . . . hmmm. Sure, that's right: Green at 1.83 AU would\nhave an orbit of around 2.5 years. And Blue would have an orbit of 0.93\nyears.\n\nNow we can have the case where Green slowly gets into position at\nperiastron and Blue comes racing up and past. But how often would the\nclosest encounters be?\n\nBack to Roy's Blue Moon: it is the sense that Green has been =steadily=\nshrinking in size, right? That's what makes it seem like Green is a moon.\nIf it were the planet I'm talking about, it would be growing and shrinking\nevery year, but its maximum size every year would be increasing up to\nclosest encounter and then shrinking every year after that until the third\nyear when it would start growing again (while still growing/shrinking every\nyear). A series of oscilations (planet) rather than a stately progression\nthrough the night sky (moon).\n\n(Oo, that's another thing--first glimpse of Green from Blue, at the end of\nEXODUS, was near sunset, no? Datapoint. Is it ever seen during the day?)\n\n=mantis=\n\n\nSIRIUS FICTION\nbooklets on Gene Wolfe, John Crowley\n42 Lexicons left until OP!\nhttp://www.siriusfiction.com/" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jerry Friedman", "address": "jerry_friedman at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2002-03-26T17:31:01+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Green the Outer World", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "--- Michael Andre-Driussi wrote:\nDuh!\n\nIn my previous figurings, I put Green as a Venus stand-in. Those\njungles,\ndoncha know.\n\nBut hey, if Green is a full disk in the sky (iirc it is always a disk,\nnever crescent--another big tip if that is correct, since outer worlds\nare\nalways seen as disks)," }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Not quite. It should never be an exact disk except when it's in\nopposition (and when it's in conjunction on the *other* side of the\nshort sun), and if its orbit is only a little bigger than Blue's,\nit should be noticeably gibbous at some points." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "then it must be located further from the Breenstar:\nan outer world dipping in, rather than an inner world reaching out to\nBlue." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "You're presenting strong arguments for this. The strongest argument\nagainst it is that the narrator consistently uses \"conjunction\"\nrather than \"opposition\" for the time of closest approach. According\nto , the astronomical meaning is\n\"3 a : the apparent meeting or passing of two or more celestial bodies\nin the same degree of the zodiac b : a configuration in which two\ncelestial bodies have their least apparent separation\". Thus if\nGreen is an inner planet, it approaches closest when it's in\n\"inferior conjunction\" with the short sun. (Note, by the way, that\nfrom the point of view of Bluvians, Blue is not a \"celestial body\".)\nOn the other hand, if it's an outer planet, it approaches closest when\nit's in opposition, \"1 : a configuration in which one celestial body is\nopposite another in the sky or in which the elongation is near or equal\nto 180 degrees\"." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "This could help a lot with the whole six-year problem." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "...\n\nCould you possibly remind me of the source of \"six years\"? Somewhere\nnear the beginning of OBW, the narrator warns the Gaonese that the\nconjunction will happen again \"next year\" or so it seems. I'll try\nto find a reference for that.\n\nJerry Friedman" } ] } ] }