OK, OK - when I learn something new (to me), I always try to relate it to other "facts" or accepted "truths" as a test of the new information and of traditionally accepted dogma. So, when I read this, my first thought was..... if precession actually occurs (I don't doubt that it does), then wouldn't a different area of Earth be more/less exposed to the sun over time? Wouldn't certain attitudes of Earth in relation to the sun position Earth's poles in such a way that more or less polar melt would occur? If it takes 26,000 years for a complete cycle of Earth's precession, do multiples of 26,000 years in any way relate to extreme weather cycles on Earth?

So, now I've given you something to test.... and if you can prove it, you will become at least as famous as Al Gore, write a book, go on television shows, gather more than 15 minutes of fame and make a lot of money. Who wants to be the next genius? Go for it!

I can't wait to tell my wife that she's really an Ophiuchus

Frank <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/cheers.gif" alt="" />

I have read that before. Possibly in a book titled "Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming" or it might have been a discussion with a friend that is an amateur astronomer.

It does make for interesting debate material.

Well, dang...... I thought that after 66 years, I finally had an original thought. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/scared.gif" alt="" />

Does it count if I didn't know anyone else had already thunk it?

I think you're just saying that to keep everybody off the trail while you go prove it and become famous. Dang claim jumpers! <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/lol.gif" alt="" />

Frank

It's not the thought that counts, it's the media attention you can generate <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/lol.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/ignore.gif" alt="" />

The concept of the Earth's precession is noted and does make for interesting discussion.

It has come up WRT to global warming issue and been dismissed as "snake oil". But, the global warming advocates believe they are right and refuse to consider facts that stand in the way of their theory.

While I have seen the argument in relation to global warming, this the first reference I have seen linking it to astrology.

Now wonders my daily horoscope is so off target!!!!

Right - see, my plan was to put the idea out there, let somebody else do the work and then jump in at the last minute and claim originality of thought, with this thread as proof of concept. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/oink.gif" alt="" /> Dadgummit! I coulda been famous. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/lol.gif" alt="" />

Frank <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/cheers.gif" alt="" />

It's called Draysonian precession, and it's more akin to the 90* off motion of a disturbed gyroscope than a wobbling top. The moon is actually a stabililizing force, not the destabilizing one. Without the moon, the earths wobble would be massively worse, and the planet would most likely be uninhabitable. I'm talking about the poles pointing at the sun and every other inclination possible.

While there may be some effect on global warming, if global warming is real at all, and not just normal temperature fluctuation, I bet it's miniscule.

There are two real sources of earth atmosphere heating, sun radiant heating and fossil core heat getting to the surface. The sun is vastly predominant. Olber's paradox suggests another source, but I believe it's been debunked.

And as a final note, the belief in natal horological astrology almost precludes any internalized knowledge of science on the part of the believer. Therefore, the scientific inconsistency of astrologers is moot...

Why do you think we have a new space telescope looking for other planets. The survival of humans depends on it !

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler_Mission

Good to see our tax dollars being put to good use.

<img src="/forums/images/graemlins/barf.gif" alt="" />

Even if we find new planets, we can't get there. Even with an anti-matter drive, you need reaction mass, and it takes a LONG time, so you need a lot of reaction mass. Even a fusion drive won't do it. The ship must be huge, a minor plant almost, and the radiation shielding needed at high fractions of c is very massive. The folks who launch the trip won't get there alive without some kind of suspended animation tech, so you need a complete society on board, with all needed specialties and their associated equipment for a complete technological society on the planet they finally reach, and you can't do the needed fine grain survey to look for the uh-oh's in the environment from stellar distances.

If you get the ship up to say, .9c, roughly 270,000km/sec, and you hit a grain of sand weighing one gram, and you calculate the force using f=mv^2, your ship goes up in a flash of energy, so you need multi-terawatt laser arrays and highly sophistocated detection and aiming tech to sweep the path clear. You can't turn fast enough to miss the junk, and you sure as hell can't slow down fast enough to do any good.

Bussard ramjets are theoretically feasible, which use a funnel of magnetic fields to sweep up interstellar hydrogen into a focus where fusion takes place, but you have to get them up to operating speed (probably a respectable fraction of c) somehow, after which your fuel is all around you - doesn't have to be carried with you. The drawback is the really strong mag fields, which are deadly to anything with a notocord due to the induced currents, and probably deadly to anything period due to the induced currents in the ship itself.

There are other theoretical transport systems. Wormholes where you disappear here and reappear there without actually transiting the intervening space, but the only ones we know about are black holes, which may or may not have an exit, but entering one is deadly. It is theorized that a rapidly spinning VERY massive cylinder can be used, but the calculated mass is more than the biggest star, and the rotation speed is very close to c. Since mass increases with speed, and is infinite at c, c becomes the speed limit in this universe, because it takes infinite energy to accelerate an infinite mass. I recall a scifi story about a fictional starship called the Lazy 8, i.e., the infinity symbol. Subtle humor...

And ponder this: Why hasn't the listen for the aliens project found any? Nobody out there? Nobody had radio long enough to get to us? Or is everybody else hunkered down and being real quiet for a very good reason? The earth-moon system may be unique, the result of a highly unlikely collision during planetary formation in the early solar system, and without the moon, we would not exist.

Believe me, I hate this. I'd like to have aliens around, and go to the stars and see the sights (Beta Lyrae would be most lovely). But the math just doesn't work...