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Now We Are Running Frantically Away from the Sun
You know how thinking about space and the speed of celestial bodies makes you kind of want to vomit and put your hands over your ears and lay flat on the ground, like a car-sick dog? Well, bad news! Because yesterday we were pretty much as close to the sun as we ever get, and now we are rocketing away from it and, if I understand the math, picking up speed as we travel away. The good news is that the sun looks about 3% bigger than it does in mid-summer! And there's more light, so your SAD is easily treatable. And if you'd like to learn more and/or argue about celestial math, elliptical orbits and acceleration, here is the place to do so.
It was kind of a relief to read the bit at the end about how this doesn't mean we're all going to turn into blocks of ice, though.
But I needed everyone to turn to ice so I could slide them around onto pressure-sensitive tiles, thereby unlocking the gate to the next dungeon!
Got your celestial body right 'ere.
Everything you ever needed to know about astronomy can be learned from the great scientist Martin Landau:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WZW4groJro
Martin Landau's toupee was a testament to not even trying to fool anyone. But then, aren't they all?
A toupee is the proscenium wall which separates actor from stage in the Great Play.
Thank you for that information, Choire. In return, I'll tell you that scientists have measured the effect of gravity on time to within centimeters and according to Science magazine, that means and I quote, "your hair is aging faster than your toenails."
I hope that means my penis is bigger than I think it is.
@baduncle: Only if it's the proscenium wall which separates actor from stage in the Great Play.
Actually, the earth slows down as it gains distance from the sun. Picture the solar system as a simple harmonic oscillator, and imagine the the earth is exchanging kinetic energy(speed) for gravitational potential energy(distance from the sun).
It's a lot like a pendulum, where velocity is at its maximum when vertical position is at its minimum.
Of course, in these oscillators, total energy is always constant, it is simply converted back and forth between different forms.
For some reason I was boning up on elliptical orbits yesterday.
You overhead me telling someone this at a new year's eve cocktail party, didn't you?
I find it easier to visualize as a ball rolling up and down the walls of a valley. The ball picks up speed as it rolls down, is going as fast as it ever will at the bottom, and slows down as it rolls back up the hill. Of course, in this case, the valley would have to be frictionless.