Alt text: They’re up there with coral islands, lightning, and caterpillars turning into butterflies.

  • knightly the Sneptaur@pawb.social
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    5 months ago

    Our planet is scifi as hell. We’ve got natural magnetic shielding to protect our UV-blocking ozone layer from solar winds. This planet is so damn cozy<3

  • Twipped@l.twipped.social
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    5 months ago

    Winter is kinda wild too. The fact that the planet is tilted just enough to make it cold part of the year, but not so cold that it kills everything, and many plants and animals have integrated this into their life cycles.

  • w3dd1e@lemmy.zip
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    5 months ago

    I don’t recall what I was reading, but I once read about a lot of things lined up perfectly for evolution on Earth.

    • In Sol’s habitable zone
    • Has a moon
    • Rotates on tilted axis
    • Stable rotation and orbit
    • Has magnetic field
    • Has Ozone Layer
    • Big planet (Jupiter) close enough to catch random asteroids, but not close enough to harm Earth

    It’s bonkers that it all worked out that way so that I could be here, right now, reading your post and responding. It really boggles the mind and I don’t want to waste my time.

    Welp, guess I’m gonna go look up random curse words in the dictionary. ಠᴗಠ

    • Mr_Dr_Oink@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      But in the vastness of space, it was practically guaranteed to happen somewhere. There are a set of criteria that allow for the evolution of life (as we know it) and it was going to happen somewhere, the fact that it happened here is no more awesome than it happening 3 galaxies over.

      I know the feeling you are describing and the words to describe what i am trying to say are hard for me to grasp.

      Its like in a film where the hero survives seemingly impossible odds and people watching say “no way, thats impossible” and can’t enjoy the film because its too unbelievable. I say no! This is a story about the one almost impossible time all these things happened. Thats the point. Yes its hard to believe, but thats what makes it awesome.

      So the earth being here and humanity and all other animals evolving here is just the time in the impossibly vast universe that the “stars aligned” and the fact that we are experiencing it is just expected.

  • anomnom@sh.itjust.works
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    5 months ago

    I get similar feelings about earth when I can see the moon during the daytime. Something about seeing it with clear craters against the blue sky makes it feel much more like we’re just floating in space with a cratered barren partner.

    • mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
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      5 months ago

      And the sci-fi cliche is to have enormous moons filling the sky, but realistically, ours is comically large. Even planets in our solar system mostly see moons the way we see those planets. You get a dot.

  • Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works
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    5 months ago

    I think it’s more wild that not only are big moons rare, ours is literally the same size as the sun from our point of view.

    It also makes almost exactly 13 laps for every lap the earth makes.