Comments on: Big Fat Whale Halloween

By: Taiga

Taiga — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 05:17:28 +0000

Are you reading xkcd?
http://xkcd.com/681/

By: Thomas

Thomas — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 19:08:42 +0000

As far as horror movies go everything since “Leprechaun in Space” has been redundant.

By: Christine P.

Christine P. — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 14:55:55 +0000

#6 jspenguin – There are about 90 planets known to transit their stars out of almost 500 total known exoplanets. The transit number should go up substantially as more results come out of the Kepler mission.

Oh no — I feel strange — Grr! Arr!

By: Eric

Eric — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 11:56:55 +0000

You can call its star a sun, just don’t call its planets a solar system.

By: james

james — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 22:11:59 +0000

Exoplanet that transits the sun? Sounds like Mongo from Flash Gordon.

By: james

james — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 22:11:31 +0000

Exoplanet that transits the sun? Sounds like

By: james

james — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 22:11:29 +0000

Exoplanet that transits the sun? Sounds like

By: J. Major

J. Major — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 21:59:39 +0000

Love this comic!

By: Barbara

Barbara — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 20:47:56 +0000

I’m sure we have exactly as many were-nerds as we have people who are aware of exoplanets transiting their suns. It’s not like Buffy and her friends have to lock up the nerds in the high school library every time that happens. They don’t turn into wolves after all. All were-nerds do is take off their trousers and stay up late uploading beautiful telescope pictures to their blog. Now that I think about it, there must be an exoplanet transiting the sun ALL THE TIME!

By: Larian LeQuella

Larian LeQuella — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 20:41:38 +0000

I’m a were-nerd. Sadly, I am in a constant state of nerd because of all the exoplantes we haven’t cataloged yet.

By: jspenguin

jspenguin — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 20:28:37 +0000

I didn’t see that. But, given that most of the exoplanets we know of were discovered when they transit their stars, wouldn’t we have a lot more were-nerds?

By: TechyDad

TechyDad — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 19:56:28 +0000

Actually, it said “an exoplanet is transiting its sun”. Given that we call the star that the Earth revolves around “the Sun”, I think it is quite reasonable to call the star that an exoplanet revolves around “its sun.”

EDIT: Aaaaand cameron and Amy F. beat me to the punch.

By: go0fy42

go0fy42 — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 19:49:15 +0000

…an exoplanet transits *its* sun… not ours, there actually are several out there…

By: Amy F.

Amy F. — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 19:43:22 +0000

@jspenguin: read CAREFULLY, it says the exoplanet is transiting ITS sun.

By: cameron

cameron — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 19:42:35 +0000

@jspenguin #1: the panel says “transiting ITS sun” (emphasis mine).

By: jspenguin

jspenguin — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 19:15:39 +0000

How could an exoplanet transit the sun? If something transits the sun, it means it’s in between the earth and the sun, and if it’s in the solar system, it’s not an exoplanet.