EndoExo

EndoExo t1_jeg6a2v wrote

They're not planet-sized. Wiki says one is about 300m and another 1.2km. Everything in an orbit is traveling the necessary speed for that orbit, otherwise it wouldn't be an orbit. In most cases, an object in the same orbit around the Sun as Earth would eventually be pulled into a different orbit by Earth's gravity, but these asteroids are moving around a Lagrange point where the gravity of the Earth and the Sun kinda cancel out for orbital purposes.

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EndoExo t1_jefyxhm wrote

If they're in our orbit and orbiting the sun at the same rate, there's no chance of them hitting us. We keep the same distance apart at all times. It's asteroids crossing our orbit that have a chance to hit us.

But it's not actually in the exact same orbit. It moves around a Lagrange point where the Earth-Sun gravity interaction creates a stable zone to hang out with us while we move around the Sun.

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EndoExo t1_j9fgc2g wrote

It didn't help that the US named everything "M-Number" and gave multiple pieces of equipment the same numbers. Oh, you want an M1? Did you mean the M1 Garand rifle, the completely unrelated M1 carbine rifle, an M1 Thompson gun, an M1 flamethrower, an M1 helmet, or an M1 light tank? Oh, you want an M1 tractor? Cool, which kind?

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EndoExo t1_iuxu733 wrote

The Army using this song to recruit would be even worse than Wrangler using "Fortunate Son" to sell jeans. Or Mercedes Benz using Joplin's "Mercedes Benz". Or GM using "Little Pink Houses". Or Nike using "American Woman".

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EndoExo t1_iuwk6n8 wrote

A lot of Herodotus is just him repeating stories he heard from random people, so it's possible this was a legend among the Greeks at the time. It the modern equivalent of your friend repeating a story he heard at the bar from a "guy who knows a guy".

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EndoExo t1_iqxmjf8 wrote

The science community will radically change its views based on evidence, just like they did when later evidence for plate tectonics showed that continental drift was true, or when the evidence backed Einstein's Theory of General Relativity. I can't think of anything similar in religious dogma. Like, pretty much every scholar and archeologist in the world is in agreement that Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon, and that the things it describes are historically impossible, but you don't see the LDS Church accepting that evidence.

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