“Two questions.
If alien life isn’t discovered in the next 100 years, what effect will this have on society?
Who will be the first to mars, the Americans or the Chinese?”

I suspect the answer to your first qu. there is : very little.

As for the second; neither of them but the Europeans or maybe Australians or (long shot here but, hey, they’ve got the cash) the Saudi Arabians!

Or perhaps, seriously, thefirst human expedition to Mars could actually be a joint international effort as suggested in Ben Bova’s novel ‘Mars’ among others …

Also asked (& yeah its probably too late to be answering but what the heck …) was the question :

by # themadlolscientist on 24 Apr 2008 at 11:49 am :

“… And exactly how does one break a piece off a white dwarf?”

With a neutron star knife of course!

What happens when it hits the Roche Limit?

Why cell phones? Why not toasters? Or police radar guns (Tim Wakefield just threw a 973mph knuckle ball?) Or it could cause all the chocolate on earth to vanish. Oh, the humanity!

“Synopsis

After a massive meteor collides with our moon, disastrous abnormalities start happening on Earth – on one side of the planet, cars begin to hover over the ground as if in outer space, while on the other side, the Earth’s gravitational pull becomes so intense that the Eiffel Tower crumbles together under its own weight.

A team of international scientists realizes the horrifying truth: the meteor has knocked the moon out of its orbit and has hurled it on a collision course with the Earth. In 45 days, the Moon will crash into our planet. As with the total extinction of the dinosaurs through a meteor shower, history is about to repeat itself, this time with mankind…

The US has a plan, but finds no international support. The Europeans have another strategy, which the Americans don’t buy into. Now it is up to a small group of scientists on both sides of the pond to get the nations of the world to cooperate and act as one, before it will be too late…

Unique visuals and powerful human drama will bring this chilling story to life.

Get ready to experience the dark side of the moon!”

I wonder what kind of “plan” they’ll have to shove an entire 2,000 mile wide body back into its orbit…

BA, you basically said the premise is a load of crap, but didn’t really explained why in tiny little details just like we like. Please, elude us.

I’ve wondered about that. Certainly if you could stand on a white dwarf, I agree with what you’re saying.

But, if by some powerful mojo, you knocked a piece of a white dwarf off and took it away from the powerful gravity of the star, I would think the matter would just de-compress back to something more “normal” and float/ooze/gointostarrehab away.

Thoughts? BA?

Most white dwarfs would have fused their H and He into Carbon and Oxygen. And they are freaking dense (Sun mass into Earth size), so it would feel much more solid than your lousy iceberg, believe you me.

Phil may show me wrong here, but I think I’m close to it.

Aside from the spelling champ: One dwarf, several dwarfs.

My 2 cents worth regarding the “piece” of a white dwarf – isn’t stellar material just a lot of gas (mostly H and He) held together by gravity? If a “piece” flies off, it’s just a bunch of hydrogen gas, not something solid like an iceberg that can poke the ol’ mood in one of his eyes.

WRT Ben Stein making Expelled because he has nothing better to do, that’s just plain BS. Expelled proves you can be doing nothing and still fart.

Phil – thanks again for this and your other posts. I enjoy every one of them (well, except those devoted to Dr. Who, of whom I’ve never enjoyed).

If the story in “Impact” is bad enough it will just give me an excuse to get out my basket of NERF bricks. I bought them for the 2004 election debates. It’s great fun to throw a NERF brick at the TV (along with loud and rude expletives) everytime you see Bush’s ugly mug. On that score only, I’m gonna miss the ignorant little SOB.

No, but they’re be a barking Robot Dog:

http://en.battlestarwiki.org/wiki/Muffit

-S

That would be in “Warriors Gate”, a wonderfully surreal episode and one of my favorites, even though I had exactly the same problem as you. The actors make an attempt to show how massive the “dwarf star alloy” is (unexplained is WTF “dwarf star alloy” is supposed to mean — maybe it’s not really made from a dwarf star but is just really dense, and the name is just meant to evoke images of dwarf star densities). But there’s only so much that can be done. You just have to suspend disbelief on that one, I guess.

And exactly how does one break a piece off a white dwarf?

Wow, I just watched “When Worlds Collide” last night, and I was thinking the same thing: “How would this movie come off if it were to be remade today?” Would they delve deeper into the science of it? Would they expand on the fear of the world about to end? etc..

Afterward, I started watching “War Of The Worlds” (since it was on the same DVD) and was thinking “What if this were to be remade… oh wait… nevermind…”

I hope they are going to explain how Verne Troyer’s leg got in that meteor shower in the first place.

Strangely, the bigger the image, the less expensive it it to create. It’s only when the cast has to interact with parts of the image does the budget begin to shoot through the roof.

I keep thinking, if I were to remake something like “When Worlds Collide” today, how could you do it and have it become something you could suspend your disbelief long enough to enjoy your popcorn?

These days, I’d think getting hit by a rouge superjovian would be pretty much it for the human race… (or even a passing one disrupting our orbit) but, could we even theoretically reach another planet? If this scenario should play out, how far in the future would it have to be before we could detect an Earth-like target planet to flee to?
Between recent advances in suspended animation, Orion-type nuke pulse drives, and other such tech… could it be be even vaugely possible to build a “space ark” to one of the nearest stars? Or at least make a convincing enough case that we might be able to do it as a desperation move?

No. White dwarfs are sneaky that way. They start out as ninjas.

This ought to be fun to watch just to pick it to bits!

Wow, here’s IMDB’s synopsis:

A massive asteroid impact on the moon begins causing storms on earth due to the sudden changes in ocean tides. But when further examination is conducted it’s discovered that the moon’s structure is now entirely unstable — threatening all life on earth. With time running out, a team of scientists turn to one man, demolitions expert John Redding, in effort to find a solution and secure the moon

The $6^10×6 man would have been pretty boring without all of the bionics

I don’t recall any show about a $362,797,056 man. Perhaps you meant “$6*10^6″ instead?

Rik:

Expelled has no point whatsoever except to demonstrate the Ben Stein does not have enough to do.

I guess he’s been eating some very expensive cookies?

(Okay, before I get the “what find of WTF non sequitur is that?” replies… There’s an old Sesame Street clip where Grover is going around selling a weather machine. When asked “why”, his reply is something along the lines of “I’ve got to do something to pay the cookies bills”. My wife and I now refer to “having to pay the cookie bills” when things like this come up. Sorry, I couldn’t find a YouTube link, incredibly enough.)