Alt text:
If you live in Los Angeles (around 33°52'N, roughly the latitude of Hermosa Beach) the black hole in V404 Cygni passes over you each day. On Christmas Day it will be directly overhead around 2pm.
this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2023
508 points (99.2% liked)
xkcd
8860 readers
165 users here now
A community for a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Imagine growing up on a tidally locked world, living in the day, until you wander off for long enough to discover the night.
Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy has an alien species that evolved on a planet (Krikkit)with constant thick dust clouds.
Isaac Asimov also mused about ribbon worlds. ie tidally locked planets with a habitable zone in the twilight regions.
I seem to recall also reading a story about a species on a ribbon world but because of precession had a 10,000 year (or so) day. They had a constant slow migration and eventually started finding the ancient forgotten ruins of their own society.
Also nightfall by Asimov.
Can you remember the name of that 10000 year book? It's been ages since I've read some hard science of the type
I'm sure I read it online it might have just been a scifi writing prompt from the site that must not be named (reddit).
I'm glad Asimov also thought of The Long Street or Eternal Dusk I wondered how wide the strip of settleable territory might be, say on a earth-sized tide-locked planet.
The moon is tide-locked to the earth, but wobbles back and forth, so a tide locked world might also have a day / season cycle where the fringes get extra hot / cold.
What a terrifying thought! I imagine there's some other sapient race out there that has experienced that.
Now think about the kinds of predators that evolved in constant night, which those people found while exploring the darkness. Then they develop telescopes and discover other worlds on which the night moves...
Unless the animals have developed a way to move for miles every day, there should be predators who are adjusted for the night side, and predators who are adjusted for the day side that would be well known and defended against from the prey on their side. For a sentient species, figuring out how to defend against one or the other shouldn't be too hard.
What would be harder to defend against would be those predators who live in the twilight areas are close to both day & night.
Kinda. I imagine the GP meant predators that live on the border of night specializing in devouring anything that makes a wrong errand and ends-up there. Like the ones we have at the bottom of the ocean.
On a second thought, I don't think they would be very scary. Probably mostly scavengers.
Is GP me? Haven't heard of that but I assume it's similar to OP. In case it is, I elaborated a bit in another reply!
Grand parent; the comment you were replying to.
There's an old Roger Zelazny story with that exact premise called Jack of Shadows
Wouldn't the temperature difference and UV (and any other spectra) immediately boil/ kill them?
Probably, yeah. Definitely can't be good for them. I'm not a biologist, but I encourage anyone reading this to chime in! What happens to cave-dwelling creatures when brought out into the sun for an extended period?
I didn't make it clear in my original comment, but in my head I imagined a race whose explorers swore off venturing into the darkness after the first few disappearances. Maybe some folklore emerged, and they assumed that "that place" and death are intrinsically related. Then, as their tech became more advanced, they gained the ability to scrutinize the other planets in their star system. Imagine the horror when they see "death" wandering along the surface (rather, the surface moving through it) and they have no clue why theirs isn't moving.
Is it merely asleep?
This was a fun thought experiment. Thanks for getting my brain churning! I'd love to read someone's expansion on this idea, if anyone else finds it fascinating. At this point in the lore, I can see religions being born to try and appease Death, or at least prolong its slumber in the frozen hemisphere while they search for answers. Wars are fought, nations fall, yada yada... Maybe it's best not to draw too many parallels with our own world 😁
I have read a short story about a world with like 9 suns and 3 moons. It's day all the time, except once every 2000 years, when there is a total solar eclipse. So every 2000 years society falls into chaos, most of the population kills themselves and only rich people, who can afford enough candles/fire or people who are passed out drunk survive the eclipse. At the time the story takes place one astronomer/scientist notices the pattern in their history and like predicts it or something.
Sadly I do not know the link. If anyone recognizes the story I would love to read it again.
It's called Nightfall, it's my favorite Asimov short story.
Thank you!