Ungeeking Astronomy
Did you know that, by law, you cannot name anything you find on Venus after men? That Mercury’s craters are named after people like Vivaldi or Tolkien? And that the dark side of The Moon is crunchier than the side we’re always facing? That’s right. We’re about to UnGeek Astronomy. Take One. Well… take 10 really.
Mercury’s hot.
Venus is hotter and nastier.
Earth’s alright.
Moon’s not bad. Jupiter’s big af.
And astronomy, overall, is way cool and people should not undermine it. Without heliocentrism, hardcore church fools would still be creepin’. Without the discovery of awesome stuff in Mars we would never spend gazillions of dollars sending stunning landers and rovers there.
But anyhoo… here’s the list of stuff you can throw out — without being bullied — at a boring dinner with friends:
10. ALL STUFF ON VENUS SURFACE IS NAMED AFTER WOMEN
So you have Cleopatra. Mona Lisa. Ruth. Mariko. Stefania. Fand Mons. Danu Montes. Akna Montes, Adivar. You know, all the sistas. And the planet, despite being the brightest, shiniest and most spherical of them all, is as deceiving and twisted as… well, let’s just say it snows metal on Venus. Women can’t do that, right? Riiiight?!?!
9. ALL OF MERCURY’S CRATERS ARE NAMED AFTER ARTISTS
Mercury was the messenger from That Lord, That Dude and so it had to travel fast. In fact, Venus might be sexy and poisonous at the same time but no one beats Mercury in terms of sheer speed: it’s fast alright. It’s hot. Some might call him Andrea Dovizioso (just to clarify: nobody calls Mercury Andrea Dovizioso).
But it’s also bullied by the sun — yup it’s tight wit it — so it gets its daily dosage of sunny cans of whoopass delivered to its surface every second of every minute of every hour of every day. Hence the names of craters: they’re a sign of chaos and at the same time… beauty, right?
You have Mercury craters named Botticelli, Chekov, Debussy, Degas, Okyo, Sibelius, Vivaldi, Zola and Tolkien.
#noshitsherlock
Btw: does Conan Doyle have a crater there?!
8. MERCURY HAS WEIRD SUNRISES AND SUNSETS; TWO SUNRISES AND ONE… WAIT. IT HAS… SHIT, NUMBER 7 PLEASE.
7. “ASTRONAUTS CALLED ONE OF THEM SATURN BECAUSE IT HAD A NICE RING TO IT”. NUMBER 6 PLEEEEASE…
6. THERE ARE CLOUDS OF BEER OUT THERE
Err… nope.
This is the image (there are more out there), location is I Don’t Care-Light Years away, enjoy it.
5. EARTH HAS LIQUID WATER. OTHERS DON’T. DEAL WITH IT ALIEN HOMES
So weird concepts like ‘Habitable Life Zone’ (a safe space to chill and sustain life) or Jupiter being called a big fat failed star biaaatch apparently are blurrier than you think. For Phil, that is.
For me — not an astronomer and mostly a follower of stuff put out there by Brian Cox — not so much. I grew up listening to these so I’ll respect them. But the fact that we on Earth — dumbest planet name btw — have the MVP of all elements’ combined is just pure and filthy luck.
Europa can have it too. And Enceladus too! So wtf made Earth so nice and comfy? Dunno…
4. APOLLO 13 > GRAVITY > INTERSTELLAR. FACT.
In terms of recent space odysseys, this is the proper list. Shut up and move on to live another day.
On Earth, this is.
5. SENDING MUSIC — AND LOCATION — TO OUTER SPACE IS JUST INSANITY
We do have outgoing probes into darkness playing tracks of artists and speeches of famous people. Don’t have a problem wit dat.
Those are not songs of the Bieber — we would be immediately annihilated, remotely and pretty damn fast! We’re talking about classical works, public domain stuff, proper world music, per se.
The thing that bugs me is the ‘enable location’ mode, as if whatever life form in whichever multiverse there is — that’s right, not a multiverse denier: in fact, in that other universe, I am a hardcore catholic and I do enjoy my spare time with men — would ACTUALLY put the address on Alien Waze and get here in week, week and a half time.
That’s so Earth-like cray!
4. YOU CAN SORT OUT SPACE PROBES USING REGULAR STUFF FROM HOME
Apparently millenials can shout out meaningless crap out of their Millions-followed channels but they can also pull an Interstellar MacGyver with stuff they can buy from the grocery shop.
It’s true. Space probes are to Hard Difficulty what salads are to Kodiak bears. You can come up with anything and that’s surely about to shoot out from Earth’s gravity. Peaky! All in good space fun!
While NASA spends billions of dollars, you just went straight outta punk town to deliver some innovative space tech. That cost you, at most, 50 bucks.
3. RICHARD BRANSON IS OLD; ELON MUSK IS NOT THAT YOUNG
Innovation waves come and go in cycles and it’s no surprise to anybody that people change but the storytelling goes… the same. Branson was the go-to guy when it came to crazy ideas. Now Elon Musk has the ‘crazy dude that wants to go to space’ sticker on his face.
Don’t see that much difference between them. Do you?
2. SPACE HAS COLORS THAT WILL PUT RIO’S CARNIVAL AND BENETTON TO SHAME
Aaand roll wallpapers…
1. BLACK HOLES (AND NOT REVELATIONS) ARE COOL. BUT THEY’RE NOT COOL TO TALK ABOUT IN FRONT OF GIRLS
Unless your company is hosting a MIT dinner, you should refrain from being a wiseass and just shut up with the whole black hole routine. You’ve trained it, it’s probably hilarious but, really, nobody in this world and outer world cares.
Stick tothe basics: talk about life, work, ethics and politics maybe and a Huge Yes to whatever’s been happening on Insta Supernovas or Youtuber Belt. Those are mandatory. Black holes? Shut up dude. Just shut your pie… and black hole. If Einstein didn’t get them, you can’t possibly sound even remotely sexy mentioning them. And don’t spin the subject with time traveling possibilities. That booty’s gone… Go home.
Alone.
That is all.
