#3156: Planetary Rings
Permalink
Transcript
|
This is one of 25 incomplete transcripts: Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page! |
[On the left side of the single panel, a table with words in one column and checkboxes in the second:]
[Two Column headers, underlined:]
Planet
Rings?
[Table entries, by line:]
Mercury [Unticked checkbox]
Venus [Unticked checkbox]
Earth [Originally unticked checkbox, now with a red tick added]
Mars [Unticked checkbox]
Jupiter [Ticked checkbox]
Saturn [Ticked checkbox]
Uranus [Ticked checkbox]
Neptune [Ticked checkbox]
[On the right side of the single panel, an illustration of the Earth from space, with Africa most obvious and centrally in view. Many dots represent satellites, a lot of them close into the Earth but an even more significant number of them are in a very wide and tilted ellipse depicting a large circular orbit seen from a highly oblique angle. A labeled arrow points to it:]
Geostationary satellite belt
[Caption below the panel:]
Astronomy fact: A century ago, Earth didn't have rings, but we have one now! It's where all the satellite dishes are pointed.
(Sourced from explainxkcd.com)
Title text:If you don't know where you are on Earth, the angle of satellite dishes can help constrain your latitude. If some of them are pointing straight up, you're probably near the Equator, right under the ring.