There's a moon in the sky, it's called Neptune

July 12, 2015 4:45 AM

Constellations throughout the ages ☆ Sun replaced with other stars ☆ Moon replaced with other bodies
posted by Wolfdog (24 comments total)

RE: Constellations through the ages link.

I like to imagine this is just Orion performing an epic guitar solo throughout space and time.
posted by Fizz at 5:59 AM on July 12, 2015 [6 favorites]

Aldebaran looks stressful.
posted by saturday_morning at 6:07 AM on July 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

Seeing Venus so close, I'm reminded that it is our sister planet. I mourn for it. I pains me that we cannot go.

Orbiting Neptune makes it seem more alien; something about the completeness of its disk makes it feel inaccessible, foreboding. Jupiter, though, feels like being in the protection of a giant, swung in circles by its cradling arms.

I'd love to live around a huge, dim star, where sunrise and sunset each last as long as the rest of the day.
posted by WCWedin at 6:08 AM on July 12, 2015

I don't think humans could ever colonize a moon of Saturn. We'd never get anything done, just stare at the night sky all the time.
posted by traveler_ at 6:53 AM on July 12, 2015 [9 favorites]

If you think that Aldebaran looks stressful, Betelgeuse would be even worse:

[Betelgeuse] is one of the largest and most luminous observable stars. If Betelgeuse were at the center of the Solar System, its surface would extend past the asteroid belt, possibly to the orbit of Jupiter and beyond, wholly engulfing Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars.

posted by Johnny Assay at 6:53 AM on July 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

If you think that Aldebaran looks stressful, Betelgeuse would be even worse:

I wonder if the people who assembled the piece at least briefly considered an entirely red screen for the Betelgeuse shot.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:16 AM on July 12, 2015

There are a few videos by "yeti dynamics" that explore the idea of other planets orbiting earth: Saturn, various planets at night, and during day time>
posted by smcameron at 7:20 AM on July 12, 2015 [2 favorites]

Jupiter, though, feels like being in the protection of a giant, swung in circles by its cradling arms.

If Earth were orbiting Jupiter at that distance every living thing would be fried by radiation and the whole surface would be one big volcanic caldera due to the tidal stresses, like Io.

While it's a cute visualization exercise the replacements oscillate wildly between teneble and ridiculous, where a body the size of Earth could not possibly have formed or been migrated or where the surface would be a molten radioactive hell.
posted by Bringer Tom at 7:51 AM on July 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

Metafilter; oscillate wildly between teneble and ridiculous.
posted by Segundus at 8:42 AM on July 12, 2015 [5 favorites]

Johnny Assay: If you think that Aldebaran looks stressful, Betelgeuse would be even worse

I can't seem to find it anywhere on the internet nor the Wayback Machine, but I remember a See Mike Draw cartoon that basically went like this:

1. Anthropomorphic Earth and Sun stare into each other's eyes & profess mutual desire.

2. Earth and Sun embrace and Kiss.

3. Earth's surface at human scale: conflagration, immolation, fiery apocalypse.
posted by univac at 8:58 AM on July 12, 2015 [2 favorites]

1. Anthropomorphic Earth and Sun stare into each other's eyes & profess mutual desire.

2. Earth and Sun embrace and Kiss.

3. Earth's surface at human scale: conflagration, immolation, fiery apocalypse.

oh, kiss me.
posted by DaDaDaDave at 9:07 AM on July 12, 2015 [7 favorites]

In the moon shots the perspective is off, notably for Saturn. This looks like they dropped in a telephoto shot, rather than the relatively close-up shot that's needed to get the right perspective and angle of view. If it were that close (and with the tilt depicted) you would see a lot more of the near side of the rings, because they would span so much of the distance.
posted by George_Spiggott at 10:17 AM on July 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

The same thing occurred to me, George_Spiggott; being right is hard.
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 11:12 AM on July 12, 2015

You can also have fun asking what if things in the sky were brighter (or our eyes were more sensitive). Like, the Andromeda galaxy, M31, is several full moons across. It's just dim. Several other galaxies appear have an angular size at least as large as the moon.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 12:07 PM on July 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

I made a few pictures similar to the ones where the moon is replaced with Jupiter or Saturn. The perspective freaked me out so much that I just saved them in a folder and never looked at them again. Having something so massive just hanging in the sky would terrify me.
posted by AndrewStephens at 1:06 PM on July 12, 2015 [3 favorites]

Having something so massive just hanging in the sky would terrify me.

Well properly speaking if something that massive is at that distance it's more like we would be hanging in its sky. Astronauts in Low Earth Orbit don't seem to develop an oppressive sense that the Earth is going to crush them.
posted by Bringer Tom at 2:24 PM on July 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

There's a chapter in What If the Earth Had Two Moons about what it would be like to live on an Earth-like moon in orbit around a Neptune-like planet. Pretty interesting! Of the various moon-replacements in the link, I thought Neptune was far and away the one I'd choose to look up and see.
posted by Wolfdog at 3:29 PM on July 12, 2015

Raise your hand if you heard a wistful Star Wars theme in your mind when you looked at Kepler 35.
posted by Metro Gnome at 3:45 PM on July 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

In the moon shots the perspective is off, notably for Saturn. This looks like they dropped in a telephoto shot, rather than the relatively close-up shot that's needed to get the right perspective and angle of view.

This video from Roscosmos seems to take perspective into account.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 4:18 PM on July 12, 2015 [6 favorites]

Oh wow, ROU_Xenophobe! My jaw. The floor.
posted by Wolfdog at 5:22 PM on July 12, 2015

There are a few videos by "yeti dynamics" that explore the idea of other planets orbiting earth: Saturn , various planets at night , and during day time

My favourite Yeti video: If the Moon Were at the Same Distance as the ISS (assume a significant reduction in density). My three-year-old son couldn't get enough of this stuff for a while.
posted by Casimir at 6:16 PM on July 12, 2015

This video from Roscosmos seems to take perspective into account.

Very nice. The "Saturn" link from smcameron above does as well, in a stunning and disturbingly dynamic way. (Don't be put off by the hilariously '80s graphics in the title card, or the 2D opening diagram animation; it gets good around :45 and really fun by 3:00.)
posted by George_Spiggott at 7:01 PM on July 12, 2015

I'd love to live around a huge, dim star, where sunrise and sunset each last as long as the rest of the day.


This describes Fairbanks AK (and I suppose other far north/south regions) around the winter solstice pretty well, actually. First the sun rises for a couple of hours, then it sets for a couple of hours.
posted by leahwrenn at 9:07 PM on July 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

I'd love to live around a huge, dim star,

So many celebrity jokes I'm not making
posted by Wolfdog at 4:02 AM on July 13, 2015