Re: CONCULTURE: First thoughts on Ayeri calendar system

Our atmosphere only protects us from fairly small objects.  One thing to keep
in mind is that the moon has a certain amount of gravity of its own, so it's a
more complicated system than just a small shield in front of a target.  Also,
for significantly large bodies, their own size will make it more likely that
they will collide with the moon.  And also there most certainly are objects
coming from the general direction of the sun, though probably not directly out
from it.  The distinguishing feature of a commet, IIRC, is that it has an
eliptical orbit where the foci are extremely far apart from each other,
creating an extremely squashed oval.  This means that commets could easily
approach us at a vector with an origin close to the sun.  Any body coming at
us from near the sun has certainly had its path bent by the Sun's gravity,
however that does not mean that they cannot exist.  The side of the moon that
faces us is rather intensely cratered, probably by bodies which missed the
Earth and continued on there way to impact into that side of the moon.
Hopefully that analogy is sufficient to persuade you that the same thing can
happen on a larger scale, replacing the Earth with the Sun, and replacing our
moon with the Earth.

Also, the more I think about it, the more sure I am that the main evidence for
the moon filtering out lots of "potential impactors" as I saw someone call
them is that the far side of the moon is far, far more cratered than the side
of the moon that we can observe from Earth (which, if you have looked at it
through a telescope or seen large pictures of it, is highly pockmarked).  If
that isn't enough to convince you, then we will have to agree to disagree.



Quoting Tristan Mc Leay <conlang@...>:

> Erich Kummerfeld wrote:
>
> >I don't know for certain but I would hold the moon's heavily cratered
> surface
> >as evidence that it may be playing/has played/will continue to play a role
> in
> >filtering out large cosmic bodies that come flying our way.
> >
> >
>
> Yeah, but the Moon's hardly there! It must only occupy the smallest
> proportion of the sky, and half the time it's on the Sun's side (and I
> don't imagine very many cosmic bodies come from that side of the sky,
> but IANA astronomer). I would've thought our atmosphere was more
> important in protecting us.
>
> --
> Tristan
>

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